In 1987, Luigi Snozzi presented a plan for the redesign of the governmental district in Vaduz: A parliamentary building was to be added to the government building, set off by an undulating house wall at the foot of the Schlossberg hill. However, the voters rejected the plan in 1993.
The new project for a parliamentary building is based upon the location once proposed by Snozzi and continues the redesign of Vaduz town centre, which produced a first edificial result in 2000 with the opening of the art museum. Between the national museum and the administrator’s house in the north and the government building to the south, the new building stands as a mighty solitaire, dominating the state square in front of it, which has also been redesigned. The underlying concept of the parliamentary building is a mighty, orthogonal volume floating above an open ground and access storey. Cubes of glass seemingly carry the massive structure, while voluminous supports such as elevator, staircase and sanitary cores on the inside bear the loads. The concept recalls the Piloti system of modernity and the traditional building style portrayed by the town hall with its open ground floor. The optical transparency of the ground floor accentuates the visual correlation between the state square and the forested slope behind the new building.
From the glassed entry area with the wardrobe and the janitor’s box on the ground floor, a generously dimensioned staircase leads to the hall of parliament on the first floor, which is orientated towards the square and is surrounded by a foyer zone in the north and the covered walkway in the east, which provides views of the forest. The meeting rooms and the rooms of the parliamentary parties are located on the second floor above the hall of parliament; and above them, the library and the offices are located.
Technically, the building is constructed as a loadbearing structure cast in site-mixed concrete, which is braced by the access cores. The exterior shell is composed of a second concrete layer, which is characterized by squares matching the height of the floors and coloured with different types of sand. These squares show the individual stages in which the concrete was applied, while at the same time referring to the room units behind them. A sandblasting treatment in different intensities leads to further differentiation of the surface.
Text: Hubertus Adam
