Benrather Karrée
Düsseldorf, Germany
Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates

Glowing stone screen shields this building from its neighbors

© H.G. Esch

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Although this office building largely conforms to the orthogonal grid of Düsseldorf’s banking district, its materials palette and a few other subtle touches help it stand out and dissolve the rectilinear landscape. Its main elevation steps back from the street to create a small public square at the entry, which enhances street life and affords passersby a better perspective onto the building.

The building’s signature element is a screen of translucent onyx panels that KPF’s design team cantilevered from the fully glazed façade. The onyx, a variety called “Peribonka Waterflamed,” features an unusual crystalline structure that handles light in a lively manner, helping to suffuse interior rooms with a warm glow during the day, then radiating light outward at night like a lantern.

The onyx panels are more than just decorative. Each one is sandwiched by layers of safety glass set into a custom-designed framework suspended roughly one-and-a-half feet from the building’s envelope. Oriented to maximize sun-shading during the day, the panels give privacy for office workers at night. Their diagonal pitch breaks up the building’s massing and scale into more intimate, manageable parts. While the onyx is an unusual touch, the fact that it is a type of stone cleverly allows this building to feel at home among its more staid, stony neighbors.

One final element helps this building to stand out. KPF worked with landscape architect Georg Penker to design a rear courtyard that flows through the building to its entrance hall and onto the main street. A curvilinear paving pattern rises and swells, referring to the nearby Rhine river currents, creating what the architects liken to a “garden painting” visible to the office occupants looking down from above. Like ships on the river, bamboo planting beds punctuate the swirling pavement and are filled with fiery Japanese maples.

Formal name of Project:
Benrather Karrée

Location:
Düsseldorf, Germany

Gross square footage:
365,973 sq. ft.

Owner:
Hines Immobilien GmbH
www.hines.com

Architect:
Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (International) PA
13 Langley Street
London WC2H 9JG
44-207-836-6668 tel.
44-207-497-1175 fax
www.kpf.com

Lee Polisano, FAIA, RIBA, Dipl.-Ing.and Karen Cook, AIA