Outline Concept
“The ECB occupies a pivotal position within the tensions between European countries: their politics, economics and differing views. The new building should be a forum to bring together these views, offering a range of ways to exchange information, explore the tensions and create solutions.

Knowledge and information have become the new currency of decision-making, and there are interesting parallels between the information superhighway and the way commodities were unloaded from railway lines, to be traded at the Grossmarkthalle.

If the offices were put into a tower, it can’t rival those in the central business district and most people would be too removed from a central gathering space. A more interesting idea is to arrange garden courts - some glazed, some open - around a great hall which looks out to the river. Everybody feels part of the great hall.

The great hall is the heart of the building: an enclosed forum, agora or meeting square. We envisage it as part of a vast, flexible “plan libre” area to accommodate a huge variety of ways of meeting - from informal cafés to formal meeting rooms, overlooking the site. Above this, wings of office floor plate, 15m wide follow the lines of force, so that they relate to the central space and to raised courts which look outwards. These benefit from both natural ventilation and the daylight a richly varied series of landscaped courts can offer.

The site organisation is developed from this simple construct. By extending the edges of the great hall from the street to the river, and using the zone within the Grossmarkthalle as a grand entrance, we create a simple and clear organisation.

An inhabited wall on Sonnemannstrasse provides functions like the gym, chapel, training centre, crèche and entry control points.”