Outline Concept
“This scheme is not about a single monolithic entity, but about a campus of integrated pieces that mediate between the autonomy and privacy of the ECB as an institution and its connectedness to the social and cultural fabric of the city. It involves the creation of a complex of buildings and interstitial spaces that are resolved through the mediation of landscape so that the final design has a sense of inextricability from the urban fabric of Frankfurt.

Grossmarkthalle is the central organizing focus of the new complex. Reconfigured, the transformed interior allows visitors a perceptual connection between old and new.

The south façade of the Grossmarkthalle is restored to its original state and forms the edge of a new interior garden court. A curtain wall is placed in front of the north facade to create a single monolithic surface that expresses, literally, the transparency and openness of the new economic state in Europe.

Visitors and employees pass through a security checkpoint to enter into the Grossmarkthalle, which provides public services. The market hall also provides access up one level to a secondary security checkpoint to the library and large conference and press area. Those with business in the five towers pass through a separate security checkpoint to reach a large interior concourse at the 3rd level functions as a distribution network to each of the five towers.

The reconfigured Grossmarkthalle is the primary and largest open public space in the complex. The augmented landscape of three levels provides a powerful yet invisible level of security. Five towers encompass and distribute the departments outlined in the program. A singular pedestrian concourse ties the 5 buildings together while the intrinsic footprint of each building supports optimal spatial planning.”