The project investigates Colognes concept for a Doppelstadt that led the car into the city and was a radical attempt to modernize in the sixties. The project is focused on the implications that this car concept had on several places in Cologne. One of these places is the Maritim hotel that forms an ensemble with the ancient Heumarkt and the spaghetti shaped roads that surround it and move literally through the building. The goal of the transformation is not to condemn the existing traffi c, nor to recreate the past exactly like it was. The attempt that is made with this project is to create a form of architecture that is of this time, that uses the past and the present to exploit missed opportunities without making a radical statement that tend to turn on itself as radical imposed ideas often do.

1. MOVING THROUGH THE CITY HOTEL
Metropolitan Ensemble, graduation group 2011-2012
0588368
H.T.C. Beelen
Graduation date: 24th
of August
Eindhoven University of Technology
Department of Built Environment, Unit Architecture
Supervisors
dr. ir. Jos Bosman
dr.ir. C.H. (Kees) Doevendans
ir. Sjef van Hoof

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Article
page 5
Drawing 1 (top)
Image 1 Morpological maps of
Cologne in 1957 and 2011
Drawing 2 (middle)
Image 2 Analysis of the inner
city highway
Drawing 3 (bottom)
Image 3 The location of the
Maritim hotel in the proximity of
the Heumarkt
H.T.C. Beelen
Moving through the city hotel
An urban analysis of Cologne followed by an architectural
transformation of an existing hotel that is at the core of
the city.
Specialization
Architecture
Graduation Committee
dr. ir. Jos Bosman
dr.ir. C.H. (Kees) Doevendans
ir. Sjef van Hoof
Graduation date
24-augustus-2012
Summary
The project investigates Colognes concept for a Dop-
pelstadt that led the car into the city and was a radical
attempt to modernize in the sixties. The project is focused
on the implications that this car concept had on several
places in Cologne. One of these places is the Maritim hotel
that forms an ensemble with the ancient Heumarkt and
the spaghetti shaped roads that surround it and move
literally through the building. The goal of the transforma-
tion is not to condemn the existing traffic, nor to recreate
the past exactly like it was. The attempt that is made with
this project is to create a form of architecture that is of this
time, that uses the past and the present to exploit missed
opportunities without making a radical statement that
tend to turn on itself as radical imposed ideas often do.
Keywords
Urban Analysis
Architectural Theory
Doppelstadt
Maritim Hotel
Transformation
The idea of a Doppelstadt (double city) was a concept by
Rudolf Schwarz for Cologne to modernize the city. The
name Doppelstadt was created by Schwarz in 1957-1960
and it indicates a city that has two cores. Originally one
core was the Heumarkt and the other core of the city was
located at the northern and more industrial part of Co-
logne. Where this second core was supposed to be is not
entirely clear. This is because Rudolf Schwarz often had
quarrels with the city council that had a modern attitude
with regard to modernization. The attitude of Schwarz
was more careful with regard to modernization. Schwarz
wanted to preserve the historical image of the city and
this was not one of the wishes of the modern members
of the city council. Because of these quarrels, Schwarz
finally left the council and his concept for a Doppelstadt
was implemented by the modern council members and
finally became the plan of ‘Das neue Koln’ in 1960. In this
plan it is doubtful were the second core is exactly located.
Since then the Doppelstadt concept leads a life of its own
and the cores of the city have shifted in time with regard to
new ideas and new developments.
The ideas that have influenced the concept of Rudolf
Schwarz were the existential views (Romano Guardini and
Martin Heidegger) that were concerned about the mod-
ernistic development and on the other side the modern
movement that embraced the invention of more roads and
the introduction of the car within the city. The develop-
ment of the car within the city seemed to develop with a
certain tail. Rudolf Schwarz’s concept for the Doppelstadt
was not against car traffic but it was concerned about the
historic Gestalt (historical image) of the city. The modern
movement that was led by Otto Bartning wanted more
cars and broader roads into the city; it was thought that
the historical shape of the city was of little importance. If
we compare the morphological map of Cologne in 1957
with the map of 2011 it becomes clear that some roads
have moved and lots of structures have changed shape.
The core at Heumarkt was one thing that was clear about
the Doppelstadt; this core was visually present in the
morphological map of 1957. But even this core could
have changed position because of the invention of the
car that changed the morphology of the city. The car was
an inspiration for modernism and the modern idea of
the Doppelstadt that was implemented by the Werkbund
members was an urban concept based on vehicles. This is
a crucial development in the city of Cologne that has lead

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page 7
Rendering 1(top)
The concept for the transforma-
tion in four steps
Drawing 4 (middle)
A section of the transformation
and a section of the existing
situation
Rendering 2 (bottom)
An impression of a Doppelstadt
architectural experience
to a new kind of architecture. A form of architecture that
deals with streams of traffic. As modernism endured this
interwoven quality between buildings and roads became
increasingly complex. The Maritim hotel (1988) is a post
modern structure that exploits the vehicle architecture in
its full extend, it stores, guides, receives and interacts with
traffic. It is also an example of a building that has become
involved with conflicting politics of many different parties
that are visually present in the building.
This modern version of the Doppelstadt can thus be
understood by the perception of a driver. The perception
of the pedestrian has been slightly discriminated by the
modern version of the Doppelstadt. From a contemporary
perspective the car city needs to be reduced, yet the car is
like a Trojan horse, once it enters the city it will not leave
very easily. Urban Planner Albert Speer (junior) wants
to restore the original intentions of the Doppelstadt by
recreating the ‘Gestalt der Stadt’ (shape of the city) and
reducing the broadness of the roads. In a way the shape of
the city will never be the same shape as it was in the time
of Schwarz. The shape of the city will be a compromise for
an historical shape and the dismantling of the modern car
city. The interventions of Speer are subtle and they form a
counterpart that is politically composed by several involved
parties that carefully rejects the ruling idea of a Doppel-
stadt. The radical rejection of Rudolf Schwarz’s concept
by the modern movement and the subtle counterpart that
Albert Speer opposes against the car city will enhance a
temporal paradox that will manifest in an ever changing
Doppelstadt. The paradox will be embodied by a loop that
states that the romantic view towards the city, that Stadt-
baumeister Josef Stubben and Fritz Schumacher shared in
the end of the 19th
century, was replaced by Schwarz idea
of the Doppelstadt that became a radical car concept by
the influence of the modern movement in the sixties and
looped back in the time of Albert Speer (2011) to restore
the historic ‘gestalt’ of the city.
Today Cologne can be entered by car from multiple sides. Con-
sidering the concentric structure of the city these long car roads,
that are in fact five lane broad highways, will undoubtedly lead
towards the city center and this center is a big spaghetti line of
highways that happens to move straight through an immensely
structure that has been named; the Maritim hotel. The pas-
sage of the hotel exists out of dislocated city tissue and due to
this effect the Maritim hotel glass arcade finds itself isolated
and panoptical. Panoptical because every public visitor will be
watched by the hotel guests that are in their rooms and all these
rooms are directed towards the ‘unwanted’ public visitor. The
hotel is a mental manifestation of several post-modern problems.
The structure makes visible the friction between the discrimi-
nated pedestrian against the overrated driver of cars but also
the rich private visitor that has grown up in a world of capitalism
against the public wonderer of cities, the nomad tourist which
is in the end a flaneur and an expert in the field of ‘being’. This
friction has led to a design that will create an alternate entrance
towards the Maritim hotel. This entrance will guide the public and
private visitor towards the hotel while taking a ‘backdoor’. The
backdoor will dodge every sign of panoptism and it will bring the
visitor towards an urban market that can be considered an exten-
sion of the Heumarkt. The urban market will honor the ancient
warehouse which ounce stood in 1920 and that was in essence
a market hall. This market hall has been visited vividly by all sorts
of citizens of the city and it was not at all isolated like the Maritim
hotel. The pedestrian anodized aluminum road that will guide
the route by using light will take visitors to the beton ‘brute’ hotel
wings, will make the hotel accessible for the public visitor, it will
connect to the existing passage structures that were placed by
architect Stefan Schmidt in 1988 and the road will sometimes
flow outside it’s concrete structure too breath outside the hotel
borders to look out upon the Rhine while endless rows of traffic
will pass underneath his feet.

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