UNDESIRED SOLITUDE - THE ORF - MODERNISM MONUMENT IN VIENNA FROM ROLAND RAINER
"If you want to dissect the ORF, you must first cut the skin!" What is the future of monument such as ORF? The extensive and dissected complex determines the whole development of the Küniglberg in Vienna. What is the relationship with its surrounding?
From the very beginning, I was astonished by the quiant wall, which isolates the entire area of the broadcast station. There are only tree gates. To attain the main entry level, we have to get over the 120 meters long ramp designed for cars. The most critical paradoxes occur the space between the wall and ORF. This creates loose spaces that are almost unused. On closer examination of history, we will find that in the original design, the wall was not planned. The subtle front facade was not hidden behind the high wall. In the past, a built barrier was certainly justified, but with a project that brings a new program as a New Media School, the situation requires a rethink, ORF versus the public and neighborhoods.
The location, I have chosen, is interesting from several aspects. The crucial is the position on the edge of the site, close to the semi-public rooms as restaurant, café, café terrace, entry for visitors and last but not least the biggest Studio 1 for TV shows. The new program generates changes and uses the full potential of the previously blind spot. It creates new entry area directly from the street level. Regrouping and reprogramming of space arise from the original labyrinth structure by adding, deleting, postponement and adding...
I work with the space to rediscover and extend the crucial potential of the space. For me it is absolutely crucial not to look at ORF as untouchable building and to yoke it together with the ground. The New Media School is the tool to do it...
shortly about modernism: Using rational, scientific, logical means to know the world. Optimism that we can understand and control an objective world. There is an absolute, universal truth that we can understand through rationalism and logic. Humans are material machines. We live in a purely physical world. Nothing exists beyond what our senses perceive...