New Zollhof (Gehry)

Although one of the buildings finished later than the others in Dusseldorf harbour, the new Zollhof with its extroverted shape is a building symbolising the structural change from the old customs harbour to the new media harbour (Zoll = customs).
Situated on the northern edge of the harbour, the ensemble kind of links it with the city.
There are three structures in all, all forming a trinity in terms of their expressive character but being very disparate in terms of design.
The most striking thing is the differing materiality and distortion of the buildings. “Haus A” for example, next to the harbour, has edges, if you will, while “Haus B” has a kind of wave-like stainless steel façade reflecting the surroundings. The white plastered “Haus C” is characterised by large-scale curves.
The buildings also differ in height. “Haus C”, facing the city, has thirteen storeys, while the middle one has seven and the clinker building eleven.
The protruding window boxes, known from Gehry’s Prague office building Ginger and Fred, here are evenly spread across the surfaces of all parts of the building and support the visual unity of the entire ensemble.
The curved hammer-forged areas were calculated by software used in the aerospace industry and produced as pre-cast units.

Awards:
Architekturpreis NRW 2001 (BDA NRW), Preisträger

Author: Editorial baukunst-nrw
Last changed on 29.10.2007

Categories:
Architecture » Commercial Buildings » Offices