Copy - Shift and Rotate - Paste, A new academy building (1010)
Conversion of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
IKA, ADP, Prof. Ernst Fuchs Winter term 2015/2016
Context
The main building of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna is built on 1st of April 1877 following the plans of Theophil Hansen. The style of the italian renaissance defines the image of the university which is part of an enfilade of neo-classical architectures along Ringstraße.
30 years later, Otto Wagner suggests a new academy building on Schmelz -in suburb’s periphery, connected to the city by the Stadtbahn- dissolved into pavillons and strewed into the terrain.
At the same time, 1898, on Karlsplatz, in the immediate vicinity of Schillerplatz, the secession is built after the drawings of Joseph Maria Olbrich. The artists’ and intellectuals’ group, split from the established applied arts, find in it a new exhibition building.
The Design
"Copy - Shift and Rotate - Paste" wants to establish a symbiosis between the expanded building of the Academy of Fine Arts and the emerging, flourishing, public life too its feet (on Schillerpark and on the newly developed park on the revitalized Secession Island) and in its prolonged corridors.
The design is based on the repeating motives of the Tower (in ground plan) and the Corridor (in section) of the old acacademy building. They are established as codes, that are copied, moved and reinserted in the area to develop, where they constitute the formal frame for the new
spaces.
Programmatically, we have The Elitist Towers- the studios and working spaces for the students. Towards north, they are complemented by pavillon structures - loud wood and metal workshops as in- and outdoor ateliers for the sculpturs that move from Prater to the very heart of the city. The north end forms The Head, a new building for intellectual movement- seminars and lectures.
South of the Academy the Secession Island is revitalized (a first step to the greater area Karlsplatz). A shell is established- an underground exhibition and event space for student’s works, that is facing the art establishment of Secession self-confidently. The shell’s surface becomes recreation ground and public space to the city of Vienna and its inhabitants.
The ensemble stays interconnected by the public strolling promenades developing out of the academy’s corridors.
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