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WAAGSTRAAT COMPLEX

A. NATALINI, 1991-1996, Waagstraat/Grote Markt 1, Groningen

ARCHITECT(URAL OFFICE):
Adolfo Natalini

ASSISTING ARCHITECT:
Cor Kalfsbeek

BUILDING TYPE:
Government buildings

In 1991 six architects were invited to replace J.J.M. Vegter’s post-war extension to the town hall, an extension by then regarded as a failure in both urban and architectural terms, with a new complex. Public support was largely instrumental in getting Natalini’s historicist scheme implemented. It combines a trio of new-build blocks with the original town hall and the 17th-century Gold Office into a new finely meshed urban entity. This and the nostalgic monumental architecture are motivated by the architect’s sense of historical continuity in the built environment. Natalini refers to an ‘evocation of what was destroyed in the war’ that responds to the ‘urban calling’ of this part of town.