ICE Station
Frankfurt, Germany
BRT Architekten

Bothe Richter Tehrani gives space-age form to a roadway-straddling high-speed air-rail station

© Jorg Hempel

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

By James S. Russell, AIA

Architect Bothe Richter Tehrani (BRT) found itself with a particularly unenviable site for a high-speed rail station at the edge of Frankfurt airport: a thin strip of land between a major freeway and highway ramps serving the airport, separated from the main terminal complex by a hotel and office-building development constructed years before. BRT’s station had to be built as a platform for the addition of about 180,000 square feet of undetermined uses without disturbing train or station operations.

The 212-foot-long, four-track station has been sized to eventually serve nine million passengers annually. The two rows of splayed, paired columns at platform level are beefy enough to hold up the later addition of commercial space as well as massive trusses largely concealed within the metal cladding of the hull-shaped ticketing level. By spanning the full width of tracks, the trusses leave the platforms column free. The column pairs are spaced relatively far apart along the long sides of the station. The designers also carved a large oval opening to let upper-level daylight down to the center of the platform level.

The architect "enclosed" the platform level with glass along the long sides and a curtain of air that trains pass through at the short sides. This minimally air-conditions the train platform—a first in Germany—introducing an airport-quality passenger experience. The glazing also reduces noise from the surrounding motorways.

As passengers rise to the ticketing level, they find themselves in a veil-like bubble of glass. The two-layered glass panels are specially treated to offer shading and reduce solar-heat gain. A ribbon of clear glass at the highest point of the vault contains some operable units to vent accumulated hot air. Unconditioned fresh air is supplied at the base.

See the January 2002 issue of Architectural Record for full coverage of this project.

Formal name of Project:
ICE Station

Location:
Frankfurt, Germany

Gross square footage:
380,000 sq. ft.

Architect:
BRT Architekten
Bothe Richter Teherani
Holzdamm 28-32
20099 Hamburg
Tel. 040/24 84 2-0
Fax 040/24 84 2-222
www.brt.de