Münster City Library

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Cultural

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Münster

YEAR: 1993

COMPETITION: 1987, First Prize

CLIENT: City of Münster

COLLABORATOR: Harms & Partner (in realization phase)

AWARDS: Mies van der Rohe Award 1995, Nomination
German Architecture Award 1995, Commendation

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters, Julia Cawley (update 2010)

The Münster Library was BOLLES+WILSON’s first major public commission. After more than ten years it remains near the top of Germany’s ‘library-user-ranking-list’. A verification not only of functionality but also of the attention to detail, to spatial multiplicity and to the ambience and atmosphere within.

The complexities of the overall building form are derived from internal organisation and from a careful re-constitution of the fragmented context. A new pedestrian street on the axis of the nearby Lamberti Church divides the not inconsiderable mass of the Library. This fissure in the library volume is closed with folded screens (copper outside, acoustically absorbing perforated wood panels within).

A transparent entrance zone (café, newspaper salon) leads via an information supermarket to the main information desk on the connecting bridge. This in turn is adjacent to book stacks in the ship-like outer volume. The atmosphere is quiet, studious. Books line the outer curved wall, a dramatic stair leads down through a 22 m void to the basement media library, which connects in turn to the courtyard facing children’s library and back up to the entrance zone. Up to four thousand users enter the Münster Library on one day.

+ + +

Münster City Library – Update 2010
With a newly painted facade and new automatic check out and 24-hour return automat the Münster City Library in its 18th year remains near the top of the German public library ranking list.

Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Exterior, main entrance, Eingang
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Exterior
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Exterior, Christian Richters
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Julia Cawley, Interior
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Christian Richters, Interior
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Julia Cawley, Exterior, Buchrückgabe
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Interior, meeting room
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Christian Richters, Interior
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Christian Richters, Interior
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, plan, Grundriss, 1. Etage, 1st floor
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, plan, Grundriss, 1. Etage, 1st floor
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Exterior, elevation, Ansicht, Fassade
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Exterior, section, schnitt
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Exterior, section, schnitt
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Exterior, isometry, isometrie
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Isometrie, Exterior
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_christian richters

Luxor Theatre

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Cultural

COUNTRY: Netherlands

CITY: Rotterdam, Kop van Zuid

YEAR: 2001

COMPETITION: Competition 1996, 1st Prize

GFA: 24.000 sqm

CLIENT: City of Rotterdam

COLLABORATOR: Bureau Bouwkunde (local support office)

AWARD: Mies van der Rohe Award 2001 (Shortlist)

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters, © L5, © BOLLES+WILSON

The New Luxor Theatre faces both the Maas River and Rijn Harbour – A multiple orientation, a single wrapping facade, a 360° building. An internalised ramp allows three 18 m long trucks to park directly besides the first floor stage. The ramp roof provides an architectural promenade in the foyer. The Luxor auditorium seats 1500, a giant scaled musical instrument, a surprisingly ‘intimate room’. The Luxor facilitates with an appropriated spatial theatricality the well working of complex theatre logistics.

On the 11th of May 2011 BOLLES+WILSON’S Luxor Theatre in Rotterdam celebrated its tenth anniversary with a spectacular Gala show.
The evening also marked the retirement of Luxor director Rob Wiegman – the great Rob Wiegman without whom this building, this resounding and on-going cultural event would not have happened. Tributes abounded, speeches – emotional Actors, Performers, Politicians, Rotterdamers – Architects.

Luxor theatre_rotterdam_axonometric
Axonometric section
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_3d
Aerial perspective
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_christian richters
Main façade
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_christian richters
Back façade
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_christian richters
Waterfront façade
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_aerial view
Aerial view
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_collage
Collage
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_christian richters
Interior
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_christian richters
Auditorium
Luxor theatre_rotterdam
Auditorium detail
Luxor theatre_rotterdam
Anniversary Gala
Luxor theatre_rotterdam
May 2011
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_christian richters
Foyer
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_plan
First floor
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_plan
Second floor
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_section
Section
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_section
Section
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_christian richters
Street view at night
house p, haus p, münster, christian richters

House P

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Residential

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Münster

YEAR: 2013

GFA: 140 sqm

CLIENT: (private)

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters

Small is beautiful (+ energy efficient) – compact 140 sqm private house with outstanding ‘sustainability credentials’.

Plastered monolithic insulating ‘Poroton’ brick walls, triple glazing and a deep bore heat exchange pump lead to a non-fossil fuel energy classification (KFW 70) – 30 per cent below the current energy regulation.

house p, haus p, münster, christian richters
house p, haus p, münster, christian richters
house p, haus p, münster, christian richters
house p, haus p, münster, christian richters
house p, haus p, münster, christian richters
house p, haus p, münster, christian richters
house p, haus p, münster, floorplan, groundfloor, erdgeschoss, grundriss
house p, haus p, münster, floorplan, obergeschoss, 1st floor
house p, haus p, münster, fassade, elevation
house p, haus p, münster, section, schnitt

Rationalist Apartments

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Residential

COUNTRY: Albania

CITY: Tirana

YEAR: 2009

An eight floor building axially adjacent to the University ensemble – the axial focus of Tirana’s 1930’s Italian Masterplan.

Mass is emphasized, balconies internalized as loggias. Materials are reduced to those fitting historical precedent and the current possibilities of construction in Tirana. The particular ‘haptic’ of the base is achieved with wide mortar joints and intentionally irregular layers of broken (reject) tile fragments.

housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_north facade

Housing at St. Sebastian

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Residential
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Münster
YEAR: 2016
COMPETITION: 2009, 1st prize
GFA: 8.180 sqm
CLIENT: Wohn + Stadtbau GmbH
AWARDS: “Exemplary publicly funded residential projects” – North Rhine-Westphalia Regional Prize for Architecture,
Housing and Urban Development 2017
BDA Münster-Münsterland award for best buildings 2017,
honorable mention
PHOTOS: © Roman Mensing, BOLLES+WILSON

In 2009 BOLLES+WILSON won the 1st prize for housing and a kindergarten on the site of the 1960ies St Sebastian Church. It was expected that the emblematic oval form of the church be demolished. Instead the kindergarten colonized the nave. It was opened in 2013 – a much published reuse with interior green weather protected play decks.

2015 phase 2 was complete, a peripheral frame of housing protecting the kindergarten from a noisy street and giving a precise edge to the adjacent park.

Market realities are clearly visible in the differentiation of the social (subsidized) housing with its bright white and pink plaster facade to Hammer Str. and the owner-occupied flats with their noble dark brick facade facing the mature trees in the park.

One corner tree is explicitly embraced by the projecting white sheet of the street facade.

Only kitchen and bathroom windows are allowed to receive traffic noise; living rooms and balconies turn inwards to the quiet green space surrounding the kindergarten.

Unexpected colour animates the lift and stair tower and the setback roof apartments. This polychrome trope also animates the skyline of the park elevation. Here big white frames give a grand order, a vertical hierarchy. But ultimately it is the grandeur of the existing trees that claim the status of leading actors in the spatial choreography.

housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_facade
Street façade embracing the tree
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_north facade detail
Façade facing the park
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_north facade
Façade and autumnal trees
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_kindergarten
Façade facing the kindergarten
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_facade
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_facade
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_kindergarten
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_facade
Dark brick façade detail
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_facade
Façade embracing the tree
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_siteplan
Siteplan
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_plan
Standard floor plan