European Southern Observatory

The entrance situation is similar to that of the neighbouring Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics: a ramp-bridge leads through a front courtyard to the foyer on the first floor. This bridge is the beginning of an inner axis that runs through the entire building. “It is difficult to place a building in an open field. Because with it you make a beginning, and you have to say something about it. You have to define something, for example the entrance, the door. Here it is on the axis of the street. Once you have created this situation, almost everything else is just a consequence” (Gogel). La situación de la entrada es similar a la del vecino Instituto Max Planck de Astrofísica: una rampa-puente conduce a través de un patio delantero al vestíbulo situado en la primera planta. Este puente es el comienzo de un eje interior que recorre todo el edificio. “Es difícil situar un edificio en un campo abierto. Porque con él haces un comienzo, y tienes que decir algo sobre él. Hay que definir algo, por ejemplo la entrada, la puerta. Aquí está en el eje de la calle. Una vez que has creado esta situación, casi todo lo demás es sólo una consecuencia” (Gogel). Starting with the foyer and its stairs on both sides of the axis, the general rooms follow this axis alignment: the institute's library with reading room and, on different levels, a lecture hall and seminar rooms. These are followed by the workroom segments, flanked by four cores containing toilets, kitchens and lifts. To the southwest, the workshop and assembly area is added as a convex element. A tower at the front and the guest housing complex frame the forecourt. This plan concept developed from the inside to the outside determines the independent form of the building. But: “What has emerged as form from the outside in terms of function, here the workshop, there the semi-enclosed courtyard, has been transferred to the inside.