Community Centre in Ribe
- Jakob Schoof
Ribe is regarded as the best-preserved mediaeval town in Denmark and its cathedral as the country’s most important Romanesque church. The new community centre on the cathedral square thus stands on historic ground: archaeologists discovered the oldest Christian graves in Denmark here, along with remnants of a refectory dating from the 12th century. The latter was integrated in an exhibition space, open to the public, in the new building. A stepped garden courtyard on the south side mediates between the street level and the archaeological excavation site, which lies 2.5 metres lower. The ground level part of the entrance floor contains a multi-purpose room and the community centre foyer; on the two upper floors there are offices and a hall for 100 persons. Square columns of board-formed concrete stand outside, in front of the glass facade. Wide oak planks mounted between them serve as sun protection and can be swivelled manually into the desired position. A coat of colourless pine tar thinned with linseed oil gives the wood a golden yellow colour. Similar oak boards, some of them naturally curved, form a suspended louver ceiling to the ground floor. On the upper floors a steel frame is concealed behind a shell of brick tiles measuring 63 × 35 cm, which were screwed to batten supports. Even the window reveals are clad with brick tiles of the same thickness. The handmade tiles have dimensional tolerances of more than one centimetre. As the result of sand deposits and different firing temperatures the brick surface has a partly yellowish or bluish tinge. The perforated metal trays on which the raw bricks were dried before firing left a chequer-board pattern at many places. The roof gutters are concealed behind box-like brick claddings held in place by large steel clasps. At the verges and the ridge greyish-brown tombak elements provide a straight edged termination to the building. In the interior the architects did their utmost to avoid white surfaces. The floor is strip parquet; the plasterboard walls and ceilings are in shades of dark red and ochre, theatrically presented by means of wall lamps.
