Wolfsburg Cultural Center

Alvar Aalto – Wolfsburg Cultural Center, Germany, 1958-1962

The Wolfsburg Cultural Center is a multi-purpose building complex designed by Finnish architect Alvar Aalto in the second half of the 20th century.
The architectural organism of the multi-purpose cultural center in Wolfsburg includes a series of multi-storey buildings clustered around the pre-existing Piazza del Municipio and, despite its overall reduced size, imposes itself on the surrounding building fabric with a remarkable monumentality. The monumental presence of the Center is fully captured above all in the façade, characterized by an ascending profile that culminates towards the auditorium (which, with its gently rhythmic appearance, refers to the outlines of the mountains behind it) and made with white Carrara marble and gray with alternating bands of Pamir syenite, particularly valuable construction materials that – as Schildt readily observed – denounce the influence of the cathedral of Siena, a building particularly loved by Aalto who was able to visit it on his honeymoon. Of particular interest is the elaborate lighting system of the Center: Aalto, more than in any of his other projects, studs his work with skylights of the most disparate shapes and configurations, starting from the thin windows of the library to the brilliant openings of the auditoriums.