saai | Archive for Architecture and Engineering

Competition (1st) and designs broadcasting building Süddeutscher Rundfunk
1948-1951

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Competition (1st) and designs broadcasting building Süddeutscher Rundfunk

In 1948, Egon Eiermann was awarded the planning contract for the new broadcasting centre after winning first prize in the competition. After several preliminary designs and variants had been worked out, the design was ready for construction in 1951 when the building project was stopped because the newly emerging television required new arrangements. The intended building site was the park of Villa Berg, a site on one of the ridges surrounding the city of Stuttgart. The awarding authority requested that Villa Berg be included in the planning.

The new buildings were to be constructed in three phases: the actual broadcasting complex, the administration section and a concert hall with 1200 seats. The architects suggested that the new buildings should not protrude above the roof height of the Villa Berg in order to avoid disturbing the Stuttgart city skyline and to minimise the impact on the park with its recreational areas. This concept led to the administration building being pushed far out from the slope falling to the north-west, so that the building grows from three to ten storeys while the roof height remains the same. Access to the building is at its highest point, which on the one hand ensures that the park is kept free of traffic and parking spaces, and on the other that the rooms with heavy public traffic are located on the lower floors, while the rooms used for creative work are located in a quiet position on the upper floors on the same level as the associated broadcasting rooms. The broadcasting building was to be connected to the Villa Berg at base level and, together with the slightly angled administration building and the separately located concert hall, form a building group that would not detract from the Villa Berg.

For the competition, a variant was developed that combines all the required rooms in one building, whose terraced outer wings, which house the administration, enclose the broadcasting area like staircase stringers. In the final design, the broadcasting hall building is related to the Villa Berg in accordance with the first competition solution, with the administration building connected at right angles, which at eleven storeys far exceeds the height of the Villa Berg. A circular, low canteen building mediates between the different heights of the buildings. The broadcasting building itself consists of three parts, which are designed independently to prevent the transmission of noise and vibrations to the broadcasting area: a solid building core with the sound-sensitive broadcasting rooms, a steel hall spanning the trusses, which spans the core, accommodates the traffic zones and carries the air conditioning system in the truss space, and the side wings - steel skeleton structures - with rehearsal rooms, tuning rooms and technical rooms, which protect the broadcasting area from outside noise.

Immo Boyken, „Entwurfscharakteristika im Werk von Egon Eiermann aus der Zeit nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg“ , Diss., Universität Karlsruhe, Fakultät Architektur, Teil III, S. 32f.