A Quarter Two for Viennaby Eva Konrad | 10.10.2011

"Viertel Zwei"

“HOCH ZWEI“, “RUND VIER“, “PLUS ZWEI“, “BIZ ZWEI“, “STELLA ZWEI“ und “HOTEL ZWEI“. These are the names of the buildings at the Vienna quarter “Viertel Zwei”. Nice puns! But what does the new city quarter really have in store?

“Viertel Zwei does not only consist of a collection of buildings”, it says on the quarter’s own website www.viertel-zwei.at. Mentioning this sentence alone makes people take a closer look: Working in an expanded living environment, buildings with a philosophy? Are we looking at urban planning of the future when looking at “Viertel Zwei”?

Looking into the Future

The 40,000m² large city quarter is located between Vienna trade fair center and the Ernst-Happel-Stadion, between the station of underground line 2, operating aboveground on this part of the track, and the Krieau harness racing track. In direct proximity of the trade fair buildings, to the stadium and several multi-story residential buildings, it probably was more than just hard for the engineers to find a suitable volume for the new city quarter.

The overall ensemble "Viertel Zwei" consists of 7 built structures that are designed more or less compact. The building HOCH ZWEI is a single highrise building, while RUND VIER consists of four individual, curved structures. Two packages consisting of two of these curved buildings each are grouped to form an oval. The PLUS ZWEI and BIZ ZWEI buildings are composed of bolt-like structures connected with each other, while STELLA ZWEI is a plain disk.

The structures standing next to each other look balanced towards each other regarding their proportions and together form a compact urban structure. Looked at individually, the various buildings present themselves as different buildings at totally different architectural levels. From outside, STELLA ZWEI comes as an average multi-story building, RUND VIER does not seem to be very spectacular. HOTEL ZWEI with its façade with rounded corners arouses somewhat more interest. The highrise buildings presents itself as an absolutely present solitaire. Its unique shape turns it into a landmark with a high recognition value.

PLUS ZWEI has a few things in store, too. One of its structure elements protrudes 18 meters into their air above an artificial lake, and due to its modern edgy glass architecture, the building appears as visionary as its neighbor. The BIZ ZWEI building complex, however, is neat and modest. Buildings RUND VIER, BIZ ZWEI, HOCH ZWEI and PLUS ZWEI mostly contain office areas. HOTEL ZWEI is, as the name suggests, a hotel. It also houses a wellness center, conference rooms, a restaurant and a Grab&Co store. The building STELLA ZWEI was mainly designed as a residential building. Here, only the first floor will have offices.

Thus, area "Viertel Zwei" has three characteristic buildings and some less meaningful structures. The project is exciting, but still: A more homogenous formal language across the whole quarter would have been more appropriate, since due to this heterogeneous appearance, the quarter seems to be nothing more than “a collection of buildings”, after all.

Plenty of H2O

There is a comprehensive green area concept for complete city quarter, they say: Its core is a 5,000m² large artificial lake named H2O. It runs lengthwise through the whole area and is integrated into the cobble-stone of the outdoor areas. A flat, rocky shore defines its shape. From the large cobble-stone areas around the office buildings, green islands protrude into the air here and there. Do they speak of these green areas here and there combined with the rocky shore promenade when “Viertel Zwei” is said to provide recreational areas out in the green?

Inviting for re-calculating

The urban-planning related interconnection between the new quarter and the residential Vorgartenstraße is not too successful, but this is something which is the fault of the elevated railway track of the U2 and the additional street. Such striking aisles can hardly be made invisible by a few simple green areas.

Despite all this the quarter with its already mentioned solitaires is an impressive piece of architecture and definitely worth a visit. A large part of the buildings has already been completed, and the green areas are currently being shaped. After a walk around H2O those impressive solitaires will probably stay longer in one’s mind. But it you happen to find your desk inside one of these office buildings sometime in the future, you will realize there are less attractive places in Vienna. A look out the office window might make some remember math at school: … Is to the power of two plus two really round four?