The Stoic City / Bernd Steinhuber + FIPE Architecture

Architects: Bernd Steinhuber, FIPE Architecture
Location: Frankfurt, Germany
Area: 726.0 m2
Project Year: 2018
Photographs: Aldrian Bischoff

Text description provided by the architects. At Light & Building 2018 in Frankfurt, visitors encountered XAL in a minimalistic abstract city. It is the background, it is essential.

A city is not merely the sum of its structures, its ambiance, its participants and how they shape it. It consists of stories. It consists of history. It consists of frontiers and limits. Where in earlier times there were walls made of stone, today is is capital that sets the boundaries. And it is the exclusivity of what lies within these boundaries that seems superficially desirable.

We absorb all of this, reduce it, abstract it. We tell the same stories of the city in different words. The stoic central square, the pathways, the buildings, the peaceful, almost private interior of the pavilions, staged entrances and a shoulder-high wall running all around. The view over this barrier is actually archetypal, and the need to engage with the “other” is a deeply-rooted need we all share. And for a brand, this is an opportunity.

It awakens the desire to take part, sparks interest in spaces for their light, and in space as a place for exchanges.
In minimalistic environments, it should always be light and its source that are the stars. This is the interplay that brings the product to life.