Architecture exhibition. 16.05. - 30.06.2009. Berlin, Germany
PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE
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Photography: Hannes Henz
PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE
2000 Competition, 1st Prize. 2007 Completion.
The Public Records Office is the collective memory of the political, economic and cultural life of a canton.
Of central importance is an adequate urban location and appropriate architectural expression.
The current location, of the existing building amidst smaller and larger residential buildings cut off from
the town centre by the railway line, hardly allows the public character of the institution to be expressed.
We interpret the need to double the spatial programme, on this site, as a chance to translate the existing
building into a powerful, self-confident form. We added an additional storey to the archive wing, although
the competition brief explicitly excluded vertical extensions. As a consequence the spatial programme is no
longer horizontally but vertically organized. By placing the public zone on the second floor the visitors‘ area
is lifted out of the cramped topography. In the form of a glazed roof volume, the new public zone engages
the urban district of Liestal, which lies on the other side of the railway line embankment. The vertical extension
also allows the volume to be kept as compact as possible. At the ground level, the outermost plane of
the facade is planted with ivy, enabling the blending of the existing and new levels, forming a single entity:
the clean-edged glazed roof zone rests on a „soft“ plinth. The planting of the facade also fulfils various building
construction requirements (protection against driving rain, climatic balancing layer, temperature, moisture).
In addition the plantings signalise the building’s special function; the organic softness connects the new building
to the smallscaled green valley.
www.em2n.ch
PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE
2000 Competition, 1st Prize. 2007 Completion.
The Public Records Office is the collective memory of the political, economic and cultural life of a canton.
Of central importance is an adequate urban location and appropriate architectural expression.
The current location, of the existing building amidst smaller and larger residential buildings cut off from
the town centre by the railway line, hardly allows the public character of the institution to be expressed.
We interpret the need to double the spatial programme, on this site, as a chance to translate the existing
building into a powerful, self-confident form. We added an additional storey to the archive wing, although
the competition brief explicitly excluded vertical extensions. As a consequence the spatial programme is no
longer horizontally but vertically organized. By placing the public zone on the second floor the visitors‘ area
is lifted out of the cramped topography. In the form of a glazed roof volume, the new public zone engages
the urban district of Liestal, which lies on the other side of the railway line embankment. The vertical extension
also allows the volume to be kept as compact as possible. At the ground level, the outermost plane of
the facade is planted with ivy, enabling the blending of the existing and new levels, forming a single entity:
the clean-edged glazed roof zone rests on a „soft“ plinth. The planting of the facade also fulfils various building
construction requirements (protection against driving rain, climatic balancing layer, temperature, moisture).
In addition the plantings signalise the building’s special function; the organic softness connects the new building
to the smallscaled green valley.
www.em2n.ch
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