The UFA Cinema Center, designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au in 1998 in Dresden, Germany.The design is characterized by two intricately interconnected building units: The Cinema Block, with eight cinemas and seating for 2600, and the Crystal, a glass shell which serves simultaneously as foyer and public square.

The urban design concept of the UFA Cinema Center confronts the issue of public space; currently endangered in European cities. This situation is caused by the financial insolvency of city governments, which forces the sale of public space to developers, who then propose monofunctional buildings in order to maximize capital return.

Half of the theaters are underground and the other four are “slotted together as a series of interlocking wedges, forming a six-storey block,” the entry noted, adding that “Grafted on to the side of this block is a skewed crystalline volume that serves as the foyer to the complex. Fire-escape stairs run down the length of the cinema block behind a scaffolding-like grid. The raw concrete monolith of the cinema block provides an earth-bound foil for the dynamism and lightness of the glass foyer, in which ramps, stairs and bridges, some glazed, some enclosed by galvanized metal balustrades, carve irregular angular patterns through the space. A café housed in a double inverted cone is suspended over the foyer, providing cinema-goers with dramatic views through the foyer and over the square.”

This entry was posted on Monday, September 1st, 2008 at 8:34 am and is filed under Architecture Design. Tags: Architecture, Architecture Design, Bridges, buildings, cinema goers, coop himmelb, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Dresden, dresden germany, european cities, galvanized metal, galvanized metal balustrades, Germany, germany architecture, germany building, House, Other Design, scaffolding, UFA Cinema Center, urban design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.