This major rental company's headquarters takes up two adjacent listed buildings on a quaint cobbled street in downtown Munich. The main challenge was to turn one of the two buildings's ground floor into the company's flagship store for their premium and luxury pick-ups and returs. Extra parking space was essential, as well as additional office space. Thus the front of the ground floor was altered to speak a decisevely modern idiom, yet in-line with Munich's sobriety.
Two basement levels take care of the 20+ new parking space requirements. Office space has been revamped in the first, second and third floors, with additional apartment units with separate entrances. The property courtyard is completely transformed by the introduction of a radically new building, two-three stories in height, consisting of three bespoke high-end town houses.
The restrained modernism of the new ground floor, with the insistence symmetry, rectilinearity and material elegance, guarantees a sober intervention in a monumental context of central Munich. The same respect is shown in the addition of a new storey to one of the buildings, where a steep gabled roof and the serration of the mansard windows continues the profile of the street. The addition at the tops seems nevertheless nearly inconspicuous, especially from the street level.
