Council and Community Hall
The new town hall ensemble develops around a central hall with square skylights, its sculpturally modelled walls creating an attractive daylight situation. The short, apparently dead-end corridors of the historical town hall building were transformed into a surrounding access system that combines simple orientation with short distances.
The extension to the historical town hall in Holzwickede offered the chance to round off the market’s urban-planning situation and establish the town hall itself as a new unity. The preservation-listed town hall was built in 1915 and had to be preserved and visible as a detached building. At the same time, it was supplemented by an angular building to create a new urban-planning entity, into which the existing building is integrated as a natural part of the overall structure.
The new town hall ensemble develops around a central hall with square skylights, its sculpturally modelled walls creating an attractive daylight situation. The short, apparently dead-end corridors of the historical town hall building were transformed into a surrounding access system that combines simple orientation with short distances. Together with the open staircase in the hall, it has become a place of everyday encounters.
The hall serves as the community hall’s foyer, while acting as the entrance to the community services, a central communication point and, last but not least, a museum space presenting the historical building. New and old elements conjoin to form a functional and typological unity. The interior spaces of the older building were renovated in accordance with preservation regulations, while the old building’s façade facing the hall was restored by craftsmen. In this way, the building regained the atmospheric qualities it had gradually lost over the years.
