Town Hall in Brackenheim

A similar commission to the one in Eppingen arose in Brackenheim, one of the largest winegrowing municipalities in Baden-Württemberg. The town hall situated in the old quarter had become too small years ago, and that had led to individual functions being relocated. The desire to reunite the principal agencies under one roof in the town’s centre led to a competition and finally to a new building alongside the existing baroque town hall. The site’s dimensions meant that we could position the administrative tract a moderate distance from the old building, producing a small square between the two structures. At the same time, the assembly hall and the registry office were shifted back from the street. In that way, we were able to create a passageway projecting like a bayonet to link the already existing square in front of the old town hall with the new square.

For the office building, a long bar whose eaves flank the smaller square, we produced a restrained design: whitewashed masonry, a gabled roof and simple window formats govern its elevations. Only its eastern side received openings arranged in a zigzag pattern – because at that point, as in Eppingen, the gap between it and the neighbouring building is extremely narrow.

An exposed wooden construction covers the assembly area. It spans between the old and the new town hall buildings and is the true identity-giver for the ensemble. Here, a dense row of “wooden swords” extend at right angles to the hall, supporting a clerestory running lengthways along the centre of the space. Two straight-run stairways connect both levels of the connecting building, which opens out towards the new square with a glass façade.