The textile-like ornamentation of these façades alludes to The Lady in Gold, a portrait of the Viennese woman Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustav Klimt. She is also the namesake of the central route through the redeveloped Sonnwendviertel neighborhood next to Vienna’s main train station, the Hauptbahnhof.
Double Duty
The front and back sides of each of these aboveground garages look upon entirely different orientations and neighborhoods.
The northeastern façades overlook Austria’s most important east-west rail connection. Every day, this side is seen through train windows by thousands of travelers from an average distance of 100 m.
The southwestern façades form fairly narrow inner courtyards with the residential buildings behind them. The distance to the apartments opposite is less than 20 m at some points, with just 4 m between the southern end of Garage 1 and the apartment and office building behind it.
Interplay
The combination of gold and white elements, rhombic geometry, and three-dimensional edges allows the simple expanded metal employed to give rise to an iridescent, ornamental façade cladding. Depending on the angle from which these facades are viewed, either the white or the gold coloration dominates.
As travelers ride past the front façades, they see these buildings change their colors and thus their “dresses” depending on whether they’re arriving in Vienna or leaving the city.
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