* location:Rotterdam;Weena;Karel Doormanstraat
* client:Esso Nederland n.v.
* project architect:Maaskant]
* brief description:Design of a tower garage on the corner of Weena/Karel Doormanstraat (1955-1970). The design spans a long period and several phases.
In December 1955 the building is called "tower garage"; it is a rectangular block of 26 x 67.50 meters, with a cafe-restaurant and garage functions (workshop and showrooms) on the first floor, and an entrance hall on the Weena with access to the offices on the upper floors. Between this block and the Lijnbaanflat (also Maaskant) is a service station on Karel Doormanstraat, with the entrance and exit to the parking garage behind it. As a connecting element between the block on the Weena and the flat, a small office has been drawn on the second floor. The garage ramp leads to the parking levels on the first, second and third floors, which are divided into parking bays of 2.50 x 5 meters, in four rows (on the two long sides and a double in the middle), with two lanes in between. The entrance and exit lanes hang on the outside of the building, on the courtyard side. The fourth, fifth and sixth floors contain unclassified office space. The building has a concrete skeleton in four rows of columns to match the dimensions of the parking levels.
In January 1956, some changes are made. Now stores are also located on the first floor. A semicircular driveway appears on the eastern side of the building, to and from the basement and second floor. For the other floors, the driveway is laid inside the building, that is, no longer along the exterior facade. The dimensions of the block have been increased to 35 x 70 meters. Also, the fourth floor is now parking, so the ramp had to be extended to the front facade. The fifth, sixth and (additional) seventh floors consist of offices; here the building has the same width as in the first design. The parking section thus bears out; the office section is narrower.
In November 1957, the building was considerably enlarged. It extends to Lijnbaan and its length is 124 meters. Across Lijnbaan, a disc on columns is drawn at right angles to the Hilton (also Maaskant). The extension of the building is connected to the western part on the first floor (retail space), on higher floors they are separated by a wall. Incidentally, both buildings have the same (office) typology: a central stairwell combined with elevators and toilets in an undivided clear space, with two escape stairs on either side of the rear facade. They have a concrete skeleton with columns on the same grid. The east building thus consists of stores on the first floor and offices above; the tower garage has the same layout, but with parking on the first, second and third ( and fourth?) floors.
In December 1959, both buildings clearly look like one building, with continuous glass mosaic parapets and steel facades. The cantilevered parking garage is aluminum and the first floor is black Swedish granite. Huge canopies some 20 meters long run up to the planned pavilion stores on the Weena. The concrete skeleton has a grid of 7.60 (Weena) x 10.70 (Karel Doormanstraat). Now the circular ramp to the second floor has been extended and corporatized into a carousel over three floors behind a glass facade. The courtyard is incorporated into the building and only a shipping street remains between the building and the Lijnbaan flat. The office on Karel Doormanstraat above the service station is an extension of the office floor of the Lijnbaanflat and is not accessible from the garage. On this side of the building, one can choose: the car wash, the lube pit or the parking garage. Passing the checkpoint, one can go down through the inner carousel or up through the outer carousel. The parking levels are divided into compartments placed at 45 degrees, so the floors have less capacity than in previous designs (average of 63 cars). The fourth, fifth and sixth floors contain offices along a center corridor, running the length of the building. Thus, the dividing wall is gone. On the sixth floor, the facade jumps in at the location of the left part. The roof floor is narrower and contains at the ends two dwellings with three bedrooms and a terrace.
From then until about 1966, the design is touched up and detailed. One of the two roof dwellings disappear. The composition of the (garage) facade is experimented with in the division closed-open areas. Eventually: the office facade has wide strips of glass and narrower parapets, the garage the other way around. In addition, a large hole is punched in the garage facade at the corner with Karel Doormanstraat. The substructure will be of Norwegian slate, the parapets of the whole building will be the same and made of concrete elements with embedded white tiles.