Prison Library
TYPOLOGY: Library
COUNTRY: German
CITY: Münster
YEAR: 2005
GFA: 80 sqm
CLIENT: Justizvollzugsanstalt Münster
AWARDS: Library of the Year Prize (German Library Association + the ZEIT Foundation)
PHOTOS: © BOLLES+WILSON
In 2007 the German Library Association together with the ZEIT Foundation awarded the ‚Library of the Year Prize‘ to the small but significant Prison Library in Münster (concept BOLLES+WILSON, implementation prisoners). The jury praised the exemplary, user-friendly and new interpretation of library functions and the atmosphere, an estranged relative of the nearby City Library (BOLLES+WILSON 1987–93). The single library room, jammed in the ‚armpit‘ between two Panopticon wings is simply furnished with shelves and counters in ‚optimistic‘ wood and friendly colours. Facing mirrors above and adjacent to the shelves multiply the original triangular room into a kaleidoscopic virtual hexagon. The prison in its entirety is optically reduced to a small central pavilion. Reading as transcendence or Borges‘ infinite ‚Library of Babel‘ are the unavoidable message. A leaf motive on ceiling and walls, like the new furniture, is the handwork of the prisoners themselves.
Luxor Theatre
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.
Blackburn House
TYPOLOGY: Residential
COUNTRY: UK
CITY: London
YEAR: 1987
PHOTOS: © BOLLES+WILSON
No grand statement rather a series of practical opportunities. First the restructuring of the row of rundown Mews Houses into a new white box. A large window breaks through the white façade, the view is not good, the glass is opaque, blinded.
Ground floor office, a two floor apartment housing, a collection; Barry Flanagan (hare), Scott Burton (chair), Andy Warhol (portrait), Bruce McLean (table), Ron Arad (table), Jasper Morrison (sofa). Interior details are added to this list – supporting column and cantilevered balcony in steel, a vitrine, a floating boat – seat – handrail – individual narratives in a limited range of materials.
The upper floor with its 14 m skylight-wall functions as gallery, the lower lobby as chair hall. Sitting on the central barge seat the visitor has reached the vortex of the composition hovering like the house itself, not quite part of London.
vZvdG House
TYPOLOGY: Residential
COUNTRY: Netherlands
CITY: Enschede
YEAR: 2005
PHOTOS: © BOLLES+WILSON
Following the disastrous explosion of a fireworks factory in Enschede NL the new district masterplan by Pi de Bruijn, required a row of modernist villas along the new Museumlaan.
The somewhat draconian masterplan also specified that only architects of international repute could build here (BOLLES+WILSON was pleased to find their Italian chum Cino Zucchi as neighbour).
The masterplan required modernist villas, flat roofs – a geometric play of volumes. The Villa vZvdG almost fell of the list by being too small – But the east facing sun shaded terrace pumped it up to an acceptable volume. The owners, a couple with a teenaged son, needed a separately accessed office and an interior that allowed for constant rehanging of their painting collection – Petersburg hanging system. The façade of fibre cement panels is green + white striped (the traditional colours of barn doors in the east of the Netherlands). Because white stripes could not run around the corner (vertical green profile) the stripes were slipped up or down at the corner – the working title of the house was “Vertical Glitch House”.
Kita Frankfurt Bergen Enkheim
TYPOLOGY: Educational
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Frankfurt
YEAR: 2022
CLIENT: City of Frankfurt
PHOTOS: © Roman Mensing
The latest BOLLES+WILSON kindergarten is now, after a protracted incubation open for its 60 mini-customers.
It is beside a fire station and behind suburban villas in Frankfurt’s Bergen Enkheim district.
The `coat of many colours´ façade is wood, sustainable, a signal for the building’s `passive house´ status. Colourful sun awnings animate the south façade where the six group rooms open to the playground or to the first floor balcony (where stairs connect down to playground). Sliding white sunscreens on the East and West façades also give night time security for open windows.
The flat roof is planted for rainwater retention and for insect habitat.
The compact volume and upper level multi purpose room are consequence of the limited site and a ground level change 2,20 m.
The interior circulation gallery is animated by an optimistic green/yellow wall with giant foot/hand prints.
A thematicising of scale is endemic to a building whose customers are only 90 centimeters tall.
