Fire department “Vitra”

Fire department of the manufacturer of designer furniture “Vitra”
Weil am Rhein, Germany
Area: 852 sq. m

The Vitra fire station was built between 1989 and 1993 in Weil am Rhein on the border with Switzerland. “The idea was to arrange the new building, modest in size, so that it would not get lost among the existing monumental volumes. It had to pick up the general rhythm, join in the general structuring of the axis space. The station was originally designed as an external limitation and completion of the landscape zone, alley, rather as an element defining space … “. Such an active space-forming position is realized by a long narrow structure, more precisely, by a set of parallel walls, which seem to go behind each other. In accordance with the functional necessity, the walls open in places, tilt, part. The relationship between form and function in a fire station is ambiguous. External forms do not correspond at all to internal spaces, that is, functions. The building of the fire station is of fundamental importance in the work of Z. Hadid. First of all, she proved that her complex spatial plans can be implemented.