Designed by Zaha Hadid in 1990, the Vitra Fire Station is located on the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany.
The Vitra Campus, which includes factories, exhibition centers and the Vitra Design Museum, burned down more than half of the campus overnight in 1981 in a fire caused by a lightning strike. On the night of the fire, the campus did not have a fire brigade. The Vitra group wanted to prevent such a mistake from happening again, so Hadid was asked to design a Fire Station for the Vitra Campus.
The Vitra group commissioned world-renowned architects like Hadid to renovate damaged and destroyed buildings.
Hadid was originally asked to design only the fire station. However, the project went beyond this request and Hadid also designed the boundary walls, exercise area and bicycle parking areas. She integrated the elements that have facades to the main road passing through the Vitra Campus to this road. The large opening at the entrance is also connected to the street.
The Vitra factory’s roughly vertical linear layout led Zaha Hadid to design the site in an innovative and highly unusual way for a fire station, designing the boundaries of the space not with walls but with voids and using the sky as a roof.
The front view is closed, cramped and bordered by horizontal blocks, and the horizontal blocks give the feeling that the building is always ready.
The long wing soaring towards the sky has prevented the building from being crushed between the factories.
In this structure where functionality is at the forefront, every factor has a determined purpose. These clockwork units are one of the most important features of the building. The building, which can convey the concepts of functionality and simplicity very well, is equipped with voids and glass without joinery.
Spread over 852 square meters, it is a modern, simple and functional masterpiece.
This building, which also includes a museum, takes the function of a fire station a thousand steps further.
What do you think, does this Vitra Fire Station, which was built to meet the need, also serve phenomena other than its purpose?
Don’t forget to read our other review of the Bonnefanten Museum.
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Architect: Zaha Hadid
Year: 1990-1993
Location: Vitra Campus,Weil am Rhein, Germany
Photo: Christian Ricters, Helene Binet
