A Whiff of the Mediterranean on the Vienna Ring

architect Boris Podrecca
project Redesign of the Donau Insurance General Direction, Vienna, Austria
written by Vera Grimmer

 

When, talking about himself, Boris Podrecca states  that he is in fact an urban designer playing the role of an architect, then this statement could be understood in the sense that every  theme possesses for him a connotation of the town.

 

This thesis could be also applied to his interiors, especially to the new premises of the “DONAU”-Insurance in one of the Viennese Ringstrasse palaces, just opposite the Hansen Stock Exchange The entrance hall of the palace is playing the theme of a piazza with two blue houses. These four-columned houses, similar to huge tables, are carrying the load of all the floors, the load negated by the transparency of the azure colour of the tables – the colour of ruffled sea-waves. It is already here that we come across the principle of dichotomy ordering the design and  appearing in all the three zones of the architect’s intervention: a semi-private entrance zone, the working zone of director’s floor and in the ludistic zone of the attic dedicated to the social life of the big company.