2

THE ARTIST WITHIN

From pigsty to showroom, this little
historic structure is cleverly reborn.

The wit and economy of thinking

that informed this design pleased
the judges; it is exemplied in
the punning description of what
has been achieved, turning a
pigsty (Saustall) into a showroom
(Schaustall). The tumble-down
1780 structure had seen better
times, and was partly destroyed
in the Second World War. It
was reassembled and added to
in the intervening period. The
original intention behind the
commission was to refurbish
the structure and upgrade it as a
showroom. However, its physical
condition made it difcult to
nance a thorough upgrade, and a
replacement building of the same

size was not possible on the site,

due to its proximity to a street.
The generic solution, which
has a long history in architectural
approaches to sensitive ruins, was
to place a house within a house,
even if the original had been a
home for pigs. But how? What
should touch what? Could parts
of the new structure protect
the old, in the way the old walls
give extra protection to the new
building?
The architect, for reasons of
economy and logistics, placed a
timber house, which copied the
facade of the original building,
inside the stone but without ever
touching it, while the showroom

roof protects the existing

structure. The arbitrariness of the
windows now looks fashionable,
based as it is on the functional
requirements of the pigs and/or
the farmer rather than a jokey
translation of ordinariness.
Light, colour and warmth
transform the building at night;
visitors can pry into the gaps
between the structures and
wonder how it was all done.
The new internal life extends
the eighteenth century into the
twenty-rst. P. F.

1
The restored building
compact and crumbling,
but given new life.
2
Inserting the new structure.
3
New and old elements are
clearly legible.

Architect
Fischer Naumann Partnerschaft, Stuttgart
Project team
Stefanie Naumann, Martin Naumann

PRIZEWINNER
SHOWROOM , P FALZ ,
GERMANY
ARCHITECT
FNP A RCHITEKTEN

East Elevation

ground floor plan (scale approx 1:100)

North Elevation 1:50

exploded isometric projection

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