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Álvaro-Siza-Promenade
The Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein is now enhanced by a new project, the ÁlvaroSiza-Promenade. The promenade invites visitors to stroll along a unique walkway in
the public area of the Campus, with various stations leading from the VitraHaus to the
Fire Station by Zaha Hadid.
The concept of ‘A day at Vitra’ currently consists of three important building blocks: visiting
exhibitions at the Vitra Design Museum, viewing the spectacular buildings on the Campus and
touring the VitraHaus. The latter functions as the flagship store but also contains a café and
restaurant, the Vitra Design Museum Shop as well as the reception area for visits to the Campus.
Vitra has long pursued the goal of successively opening up the Campus to the public. The
sculpture ‘Balancing Tools’ (1984) is located in the publically accessible area outside the fencedoff company premises, as are the Vitra Design Museum by Frank O. Gehry (1989) and the
Conference Pavilion by Tadao Ando (1993). The opening of the VitraHaus in 2010 put the public
focal point in the northern section of the grounds while the factory building by SANAA, situated
within the company premises, has continued to raise production capacities since its official
dedication in 2012. A second public focal point is to be established in the future around the Fire
Station by Zaha Hadid (1993), a Vitra Campus icon and long-time venue for special exhibitions
and events. From the very start, the direct path to this building proceeded along the central axis of
the Campus and hence straight through the company premises, though delivery traffic has
meanwhile been redirected to an area further to the east. For the long term, however, this
arrangement for visitor access to the Fire Station was unsatisfactory, prompting the idea of
creating a pedestrian connection between the Fire Station and the VitraHaus independent of the
fenced-off production areas. Such a solution became all the more urgent in light of future plans to
establish a city-side entrance to the Vitra grounds. Visitors arriving from Basel by tram will then
have direct access to the Fire Station and from here --- unimpeded by the flow of factory traffic --can continue along to the VitraHaus and Museum.
Following the opening of the VitraHaus, the majority of visitors now arrive at the adjacent parking
lot at the northern tip of the grounds. This gave rise to the idea of routing the planned pedestrian
passage from this site along the west side of the company grounds and around the factory
building by Álvaro Siza. In September 2011, Vitra’s Chairman Emeritus Rolf Fehlbaum went to Siza
with this proposal. The Portuguese architect was a logical choice, for he not only realised the brickclad production hall in 1994, but had also devised the layout of the two parking areas. Moreover,
pathways connecting a building to the surrounding landscape are an enduring theme of his work.
This interest extends from one of his renowned early projects, the swimming pool complex in Leça
da Palmeira (1959---1973), and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santiago di Compostela (1994)
and the Architecture Faculty of Porto (1995) up to his most important current project, the entrance
and visitor centre for the Alhambra in Granada, which Siza has been planning since 2010 together
with his Spanish project partner Juan Domingo Santos.
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Álvaro-Siza-Promenade
The so-called Álvaro-Siza-Promenade occupies a length of 500 metres. It consists of an asphalt
pathway bounded by two-metre-high hornbeam hedges. In some parts, the hedges flank the path
in a linear arrangement while other sections widen and open up to create green spaces. Siza
chose hedges to illustrate the changing of the seasons. These are paired with hard, unchanging
materials, as can be found in the earlier factory building by Siza: Dutch brick and Portuguese
granite. The repertoire of forms and materials is reduced to a small number of elements.
The pathway is syncopated with ‘episodes’ --- distinctive sequential settings that offer a variety of
unique spatial experiences. In the first phase of development, these include an S-shaped common
area framed by hedges, the Vitra Slide Tower by Carsten Höller and an archaic-looking double
chamber formed from interpenetrating brick and granite walls. The promenade is like a pilgrimage
route marked by multiple stations, simultaneously evoking English gardens with its various ‘follies’.
With the individual architecturally expressed elements, Siza counters the Romantic idea of an
indistinguishable melding of nature and architecture --- landscape and geometry follow their own
laws but, as is typical of Siza’s work, find their way to a state of balance on a higher level.
The Álvaro-Siza-Promenade, illuminated at night by lighting which was likewise designed by Siza,
begins with a small asphalted plaza across from the west corner of the VitraHaus, bounded by
blocks of granite that serve as benches. Proceeding from this spot at a right angle, the path initially
runs parallel to the parking lot which is screened off on by a two-metre-high hornbeam hedge
while the other side offers wide views; here the promenade directly borders the Campus meadow
and passes by Renzo Piano’s miniature house ‘Diogene’. In front of Siza’s 1994 factory building,
the pathway makes a slight turn to the left where an S-shaped structure of hedges and granite
benches invites visitors to make a brief stop before veering to the right to cross the connecting path
between the employee parking lot and the Siza factory building and continue in a wide arc
toward the Weil-Haltingen roadway, which forms the western border of the company premises.
The path passes by the Vitra Slide Tower by Carsten Höller and through the space between the
street, made to appear more distant by the intervening hedge, and the two corners of the Siza
factory building, leading into an exterior space enclosed on three sides by a high wall that acts as
the central joint of the promenade. A narrow gate-like break in the southern corner of the wall
opens up to a further space framed by two angled granite walls and feeds into the last section of
the promenade, which --- widening from three to ten metres and framed on both sides by strips of
granite --- runs parallel to the west side of the Siza building and leads to the Fire Station by Zaha
Hadid. The promenade ends in another small plaza, framed by blocks of granite and connected to
the main axis of the Campus, which could also provide a future point of access for the planned
city-side entrance to the Campus.
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Álvaro Siza – the biography
Álvaro Siza, born in Matosinhos, Portugal, in 1933, studied architecture at the University of Porto.
From 1955---1958, he collaborated with architect Fernando Tavora. From 1966---69, Álvaro Siza
taught at the School of Architecture (ESBAP) and as of 1976 held a professorship in ‘Construction’.
From 1984---92, he was a teacher at the Architecture Faculty in Porto. In 1985, he won a prize for his
design of ‘Campo de Marte’ in Venice and as of 1988 was in charge of reconstructing the ‘Chiado’
old town in Lisbon. In 1992, Álvaro Siza won the Pritzker Prize for his life’s work. He teaches in South
America, Japan, Canada, the USA and Europe.
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