Technology: Concrete Flowers along the Vorarlberg Museum – Realizing an Aesthetic Idea
- Julia Liese
Cukrowicz Nachbaur Architekten created an extraordinary facade for the addition and renovation of the vorarlberg museum in Bregenz: a multitude of irregularly arranged, relief-like protrusions adorn the even surface of the exposed concrete facade. Its vivid play of light and shadow provide it with a three-dimensional impression with enormous haptic presence. At the same time, the appearance is mysterious: from afar only uniformly distributed dots are visible. At a closer glance circular moulds with a floral structure become apparent that reveal themselves to be casts of various PET bottle bottoms. To be precise, the concrete flowers only cover one part of the museum - the new addition. It is oriented towards the newly designed entry plaza directed at the historic city and replaces the old museum building. A major goal of the alteration was to integrate the bordering existing listed building from 1905 facing Lake Constance. By adding two further storeys to the existing building, the two building parts placed back to back merge into a prismatic structure - emphasized by the uniform colour scheme with a light grey that almost appears white. By doing so, the addition to the existing building communicates adeptly between old and new: on the one hand, the even surface of the new exposed concrete facade construction is continued here - yet, without the floral pattern. On the other hand, its protrusions and recesses adopt elements of the historic solid facade penetrated by windows.
