Johann-Pachelbel-Realschule/Staatliche Fachoberschule II

In the historically fraught context of Nuremberg, a new middle school and vocational high school combines historical references into a neutral but powerful style that is uniquely its own.

In Germany, where history is especially fraught, architects face few locations as complex as Nuremberg. A medieval center of commerce that became the site of Nazi rallies and post-WWII war crimes trials, today it is a bustling town with a mélange of historical, historicist, and contemporary buildings. That history weighs on any new project: How a building looks is not just a question of style, but of politics and memory.

So when the city asked Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei to design a new public school on Nuremberg’s west side, the Stuttgart-based firm effectively sidestepped the question. The resulting building seems wholly out of time and yet draws upon references from early and midcentury Modernism, Postmodernism, and a village plan circa the Middle Ages. It is a new building that feels timeless, managing to reference its surroundings while seeming, paradoxically, contextless.

The Johann-Pachelbel-Realschule/Staatliche Fachoberschule II combines a middle school and vocational high school in one low-slung building, with two long, straight wings connected at the center by an entrance hall that houses an auditorium, music room, and other shared spaces. The building is urban in compact plan and yet—sited in a forested area and surrounded by trees—almost bucolic in its setting. At the same time, says managing partner Arno Lederer, its squat shape places it “in dialogue with the heterogeneous everyday architecture of multistory housing buildings nearby.”

The school is built around two plazas created by the H-shaped plan: A public one, facing a nearby street, is both entrance and an outdoor space for the cafeteria (the firm compares it to a medieval village marketplace), and a more private one in back is used for recess and outdoor performances. Inside, exposed concrete contrasts with bright red linoleum, natural stone floors, and lime-green walls; light-colored wood is used for railings and furniture tucked into study alcoves spread around the building.

The firm clad the exterior of the three-story structure with brick, punctuated with strips of windows along its length and large portholes along its shorter sides. Some corners are right angles, while others are curved, giving it a tinge of art moderne—explicit references, Lederer says, to two classic examples of modernist school design: the Crow Island School in Illinois by Eliel and Eero Saarinen and the Munkegaard School in Denmark by Arne Jacobsen.

The result is less a combination of styles than a building that refuses to be categorized. “We like to refer to styles that have a strong aesthetic, are sustainable and useful, yet hold something back,” Lederer says.

Project Credits
Project: Johann-Pachelbel-Realschule / Staatliche Fachoberschule II, Nuremberg, Germany
Client: City of Nuremberg
Architect: Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei Architekten, Stuttgart, Germany . Arno Lederer, Wolfram Sponer, Alexander Hochstraßer, Michael Maier
General Contractor: Georg Reisch
Structural Engineer: Bauer & Partner
Building Engineer: K + P
Electrical Engineer: Werner Schwarz
Façade Planning: Ingenieurbüro Koch
Structural Physics: ITA
Passivehouse Consultant: Herz & Lang
Fire-Protection Consultant: IB Oelmaier
Landscape: IB Kovacic
Kitchen Concept: Ingenieurgruppe Walter Beratende Ingenieure
Ground Surveyor: Vermessungsbüro Phometric
Construction Management: Architekturbüro Kappeler
Size: 21,490 square meters (231,316 square feet)
Cost: Withheld