A building that inserts a new square in the plan of the City, in a zone of transition from monumental 19^thcentury administration buildings to smaller scale row houses with no major urban frontage, but bisected by a public right of way (commuter bicycle route). The “U”-form of the new building frames a ramped square, scales change in stages. The bicycles punch a grand portal through the office facade. Cellular offices open through a glass facade supported on a frame of laminated timber giving the conventional offices a lightness and transparence.

The principle which animates this convention bound site and program is that of carefully detailing and choreographing everyday necessities – entrance, office layout, meeting rooms. The whole adds up to a clear and precise urban insert, sculptural in its form both object and container. The facade has been energetically upgraded.

Finished in late 2020 Frobenstraße 1 offers for renting 11 variously sized apartments and 2 commercial units in an area of fashionable shops and galleries (Potsdamer Straße), street prostitution, social housing and huge investor driven developments of owner occupied apartments.

Frobenstraße 1 is a chorus member. It is not a Primadonna that steps out to front stage. The choreography of urban choruses is the Großstadt-DNA of Berlin, Paris or Barcelona. It defines the street line and the eaves line. In Frobenstraße 1 the upper facade limit is articulated with a recessed shadow line, a modest but significant detail.

The well behaved chorus anticipates a fictive future block-perimeter conclusion to the south, where there is now a Kindergarten with luxurious trees. Here the pink side wall (fire wall) presents itself for the kids with its giant footprint graphic.

Unlike the Bel étage of a Paris House the first floor here has the standard 3,10 m room height, but its special relation to the street is prescribed by the delicate and continuous railing.

The window composition to the street describes the internal layout where three apartments break out of the standard, but generous room height to 4,80 m and 6,50 m. The grey facade has therefore aspirations to be read as a palazzo, with the projecting penthouse window playing the classic attica.

The garden facade is more domestic, balconies meandering out for afternoon sun and individual planting.

For the interior communal stair and lift black and white tiles dignify homecoming.

The BEIC is in the state of becoming. It already exists on the agendas of countless participating planners, librarians, expertly shepherding clients, politicians, Milanese and other future users. As the planning steadily marches through preliminare, definitivo and on to esecutivo phases, expectations multiply (optimism is contagious) and the physical character, the individuality, the unique spaces of this exceptional endeavour come ever more sharply into focus. Despite the grand scale the building conjures a certain intimacy for individual users. It invents an entirely new constellation of the ‘house of knowledge’, where digital ephemerality cohabits with our old friend the book. The emerging BEIC remains true to the concept that won the architectural competition. Within this architectural and organisational framework countless refinements have been invented (terracotta facade, the bar-chart-acoustically-absorptive interior panelling) and significant opportunities like the earthquake resistant wave-like ceilings have been identified and integrated.

Urban Concept – The site is linear, as is the remembered trajectory of the Stazione Vittoria. The BEIC’s two doors address the east (the centre of Milan, Viale Umbria) and the west (new subway exit, Viale Mugello and the new sport and recreation landscape beyond). An east-west pedestrian walkway runs not parallel to but through the BEIC – urban networking.

A 36 m high Urban Landmark – A vessel of culture and information, invitation, frame and enabler to multiple passages and trajectories. Entrance ramps fold surrounding pavements up to the +5.00 piazza, entrances and lobby. Reading arms extend out from the main volume.

Windows like that to the main elevator lobby on axis with the Via Vertoiba, tie through framed views the interior back into the urban context.

The terraces of the various departments frame a communicative forum, a landscape of knowledge. Reading salons nestled into the sidewalls of the frame or balcony edge desks offer a wide variety of working atmospheres. Warm acoustically absorptive materials provide the required library ambience.

Program – A 5 m high socle contains all functions outside the controlled library – Conference, Teaching Centre, Media Forum, Childrens Library with garden, carparks. The walkthrough Lobby gives a visual orientation to all departments galleried above. It flows into the entrance, general information and reference zones. Reading Rooms are on the north side, Users Own in the east arm, connecting to youth areas. Departments are on three upper balconies, with variable stores and connected via ramps in the reading arms – a flowing together. Workshops, offices and administration are in the 3 storey arm along the Via Monte Ortigara. 

The entrance to Schlosspark Neersen is framed by the parallel sides of the Schloss / City Hall and the new building for the City Hall technical Departments.

With its wide span-cantilevered canopy and transparent facade the new addition presents its functions like a building scale vitrine.

The enclosing back wall is in a discrete and modest industrial brick, in keeping with the suburban surrounds and at the same time a reference to the nearby Mies van der Rohe Haus Lange and Haus Esters.