Stadthaus Ulm Richard Meier
Conceived as a programmatic and cultural complement to Ulm’s Münsterplatz and the historic mass of its cathedral, this Stadthaus establishes a modest, secular, civic presence within the main square of the city. The building houses a visitors’ center, a ticket office, and a café terrace on the ground floor, and a top-lit, multilevel gallery space-cum-lecture hall on the floors above. With its striking cylindrical form capped by three prominent roof skylights, the building imparts a decisively civic character to the mainly commercial frontage of the square.
The main body of the building derives its form from the geometry of the cathedral and the square. It is based on a nine-square structural bay system augmented on three sides by concentric peripheral walls modified and curtailed by intersecting axes and regulating lines. The main drum form functions as a counterpoint to the cathedral as one enters the square from the west and southwest. An asymmetrical stair and a freestanding elevator afford access from the ground floor to the lecture hall and exhibition spaces above, while a loggia/bridge at the upper level links the restaurant to the entry foyer on the ground floor and the exhibition spaces above. The building was designed to provide framed views of the cathedral and the square. The construction is reinforced concrete frame and blockwork throughout, with the inner nine-square cube faced in natural stone and the outer concentric screen walls and the restaurant clad in stucco. The northwest perimeter of the square is planted with sycamore trees to create an intimate pedestrian scale along the commercial frontage, while the parvis was re-created and repaved in accordance with a grid derived from the geometry of the cathedral.
For centuries a monastery stood in the square on the site of today’s Stadthaus, which later became a Latin grammar school. It was dismantled in 1878 - shortly before completion of the Minster - to give a better view on the worlds highest spire. The design of the square, Münsterplatz, has been subject of heated arguments for 105 years, resulting in 17 design competitions, in which expert opinions and plans were submitted. In 1986 Richard Meier’s design was chosen by the panel. However, the decision proved controversial and was subjected to a referendum In 1987, when the population voted narrowly against the proposal. The elected council, the Stadtrat, decided to rule against the narrow vote and construction began in 1991. Opponents continued to campaign against it. However, the Stadthaus was finished in 1993, and in 2019 the building was listed as monument significant to national heritage: ‘Kulturdenkmal von besonderer Bedeutung’. Today, the Stadthaus forms the centre of redevelopment of Ulm’s city centre.
The Stadthaus Ulm is in the centre of Ulm (Germany), located on the Münsterplatz (minster square). Primarily, the building is used to present exhibitions of photography, modern and contemporary art. A lecture hall is used for a variety of events, activities and workshops, including a festival of modern music. It houses the city’s Tourist information centre and other public services on the ground floor. A permanent exhibition of the archaeology and history of the Münsterplatz is located on the lower level. The Stadthaus was designed by the US architect Richard Meier, who attempted to complement and contrast the Gothic architecture of Ulm Minster.
The Stadthaus provides a total area of 3,600 m² on four levels, connected by an open staircase, with views of the interior and the exterior beyond. Richard Meier designed the interior space with contrasting linear and curving forms.
The Stadthaus both organises and co-produces cultural events. It has become a local, national, and international hub for events in the fields of arts, science and scholarship, politics, business, media, and current topics of common interest to the public. The main hall seats up to 320 people and serves as concert hall, lecture theatre, discussion forum and congress venue. The exhibition programme focuses on contemporary art, including photography, as well as on architecture and environmental planning. It is a particular concern of the Stadthaus to provide a platform for young, upcoming artists. Another central component of the Stadthaus’ concept is the annual ‘Festival für Neue Musik’ (‘Festival of contemporary music’). The materials used in the building relate to the immediate surroundings: Spanish Rosa Dante granite was used in the cladding of the building, the floor of the terraces, and the pavement of the square. The incline of the roof reflects the architecture of the neighbouring buildings.
Richard Meier, in full Richard Alan Meier, (born October 12, 1934, Newark, New Jersey, U.S.), American architect noted for his refinements of and variations on classic Modernist principles: pure geometry, open space, and an emphasis on light.
Meier graduated from Cornell University (B.A., 1957) in Ithaca, New York. His early experience included work with the firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in New York City and with Marcel Breuer, a noted exponent of the International style of architecture. In 1963 Meier formed his own firm. Early on he received critical acclaim for the Smith House (1967) in Darien, Connecticut, the first of his so-called white buildings, which clearly built upon the pristine Modernism of Le Corbusier’s work in the 1920s and ’30s. During this period he formed a loose association with a group of young architects, known as the “New York Five,” who advocated a return to Modernist, rational architecture. He received more attention for his Douglas House (1973), an archetypal example of his work, located in Harbor Springs, Michigan. Like much of his work, it features intersecting planes, and, in its crisp geometric whiteness, it provides a sharp contrast to the natural setting that surrounds it. Building upon the success of his series of spectacular private residences, starting in the mid-1970s Meier began to receive large public commissions, including the Atheneum (1979) in New Harmony, Indiana; the Museum of Decorative Arts (1985) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany; the High Museum of Art (1983) in Atlanta, Georgia; the City Hall and Library (19895) in The Hague, Netherlands; and the Museum of Contemporary Art (1995) in Barcelona, Spain. These structures are characterized by geometric clarity and order, which are often punctuated by curving ramps and railings, and by a contrast between the light-filled, transparent surfaces of public spaces and the solid white surfaces of interior, private spaces.
Indeed, they all embody Meier’s description of his goals: “I am expanding and elaborating on what I consider to be the formal base of the Modern movement.…I work with volume and surface, I manipulate forms in light, changes in scale and view, movement and stasis.” Although some critics have found these structures too austere and reminiscent of past architectural achievement, others have applauded their formal beauty and welcomed their purity in the midst of the often jumbled forms of postmodernist architecture. From 1985 to 1997 Meier focused much of his attention on the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Comprising six principal buildings that house the Getty collection and educational facilities, the centre is built of honey-coloured travertine complemented by aluminum panels. The multiple purposes of the complex from public galleries to private study rooms gave Meier a chance to explore the contrast between public and private spaces as never before, and its positioning in the hills of Los Angeles allowed Meier an optimum opportunity to explore the effects of light. Meier received numerous awards from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and other architectural associations. In 1984 he won the Pritzker Architecture Prize, and in 1997 he received the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale prize for architecture.
Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center, Los Angeles, designed by Richard Meier, 1997.