Refurbishment and extension of the state parliament of Baden‐Wuerttemberg, structural planning. After several years of refurbishment and reconstruction, the state parliament of BadenWürttemberg appears virtually unchanged; merely some underground extensions of the Community and Media Center with its Agora within the municipal park are recognizable changes. However, the changes inside the building are clearly visible, especially the results of interfering into the bearing structure of the plenary hall. It used to be a hermetically sealed assembly hall, with a stiffened reinforced concrete construction where no daylight could come in and a visual relation to the outside was impossible. In a special architectural competition, the parliamentarians were finally to receive ”light and vision“ in the plenary hall.
All necessary structural and constructive interventions for the supporting structure, as well as profound arrangements and considerations are the main subject of this article, as the federal state parliament is a building listed as historic monument, which should be preserved.
Furthermore, the construction of the plenary hall's innovative, illuminated ceiling and the full‐glass elevator enclosure for access to the Community and Media Center are described below. Both special constructions are unique and needed the approval of the Supreme Building Authority, required in an individual case.
The structural interventions described are essentially the creation of a larger, broad wall opening in the plenary hall, with in‐ and outsight and transparency, the construction of openings in the ceiling, for skylights and light directing elements, the re‐construction of the plenary hall's floor for a stepless access, the creation of a new access, which connects the ground floor of the state parliament with the new Community and Media Center, and the construction of a new elevator shaft and barrier‐free access to the Community and Media Center
Many other structural design challenges had to be solved in this respect. The description of these mostly inconspicuous but no less difficult structural interventions in the existing and historically protected building and all the necessary planning is left out.