The last two photos in my recent Blue Balls festival were taken from underneath the Lucerne Culture and Convention Centre’s overhanging roof.  The pictures in this post show how the building appears against its backdrop of mountains.  You can read about the building and the archect in a previous post of mine.

The Kultur-und Kongresszentrum or Culture and Convention Centre when translated into English is more commonly known as the KKL Centre.

The KKL Centre was a project of French architect Jean Nouvel and built between the years 1995 to 2000.

The Culture and Convention Center in Lucerne is composed of three parts: a concert hall, conference rooms with an auditorium and a museum of contemporary art.

The idea was to play with a horizontal plane as canopy linking the different spaces that are lined up below. This form on the elevation level of the lake covered a large urban area with a water element. The metaphor refers to three ships docked in the lake under the huge deck.

The construction was a major challenge because of the overhang that reaches 45 meters on the diagonal, with a height of 21 meters. This represents the most architecturally unique building, which ‘float’ light and elegant between land and sky, and gives the area a peaceful atmosphere.

The roof was designed to harmonize with a horizontal center of the lake, inviting visitors to spend some time abroad.

Faced with the impossibility of building the center on water, Nouvel decided to enter the lake in the building, creating two channels of low depth that operate within the complex. The water was channeled into the three parts of the building at the same level as the Plaza Europa.

The tech behind the structure:

In choosing the form of the large roof overhang and structural economic influence. A web of steel plate girders were included to strengthen the high slope in the northeast corner. With a maximum height of 3.7 meters beam, falling almost to zero at the edge of the roof, it was possible to achieve a cantilever beam of 45 meters.

A major challenge was how to ensure continuity at the intersection of three beams of 2.5 meters. The engineers used an innovative concept for linking the main diagonal beams to allow a continuous distribution of bending throughout the structure, uninterrupted by the joints. Diagonal beams were organized to achieve large holes in the main beams. Linkages were established with neck bolts using HSFG soldier.

As the wind is the most important cargo solicitation on the roof, their behavior was studied in a wind tunnel using a 1:200 scale model. Different parts of the structure were tested in a laboratory compared to storms, earthquakes, fires, depletion and degradation. The long-term performance of the roof is guaranteed by an extensive program of inspection and maintenance. To access the interior of the roof is designed especially removable plates.

After breakfast our first port of call was the Jesuit Church which we had been meaning to visit all week. The inside reminded me very much of an ornate wedding cake.  We then ventured into the Museum of Art which is located in the Culture and Convention Centre (KKL). We were tempted there by the following description:

Covering an area of 2′100 square meters, the museum has temporary exhibitions displaying significant works of modern art, as well as exhibitions from the museum’s own collection, with an emphasis on 19th and 20th century landscape painting and international art from 1960.

Nearly all the art on display was extremely modern and not what I think of as ‘art’ and I didn’t notice any landscape paintings…  The temperature was in the 90s so after viewing the artworks we hoped to have refreshing drink on the terrace, but the cafe/bar was shut. We left the art museum and found an alternative cafe where we could sit and chill out before making our way to the train station for the start of our home journey.

On the way back to the hotel to pick up our baggage we visited a very old church before picking up sandwiches to enjoy on our train journey back to the airport.  When we arrived at the station there was train just about to leave and Mr C decided we would rush to catch this one rather than wait for the one we had planned to catch.  The cases then had to be hauled up and down stairs and along the carriages until we arrived in the correct part of the train for our tickets!

Not quite the relaxing journey it should have been, especially in the soaring temperatures.   But it did mean that we arrived at the airport in plenty of time for the flight.  The airport was cool due to the air conditioning, which was quite welcome.

Our flight was a little late leaving, but the pilot/flight was much better than our outward journey experience.  It was also nice to see Birmingham without cloud as we landed, that has got to be a first for many years…

]]> http://www.cheriesplace.me.uk/blog/index.php/2013/08/06/lucerne-day-six/feed/ 8