The Compact City of Atlanpole / Hans Kollhoff

View from the river | © Hans Kollhoff Architects

In 1988 Hans Kollhoff submitted his proposal for the “Technopole” competition titled “The Compact City of Atlanpole”. The design, conceived as an urban center with research and teaching facilities for highly specialized industries, is a large building that contains the “energy” of an entire town and stands alone in the countryside.

The Compact City of Atlanpole Technical Information

• Architect: Hans Kollhoff
• Collaborators: Hubertus Duwensee
• Location: Nantes, France
• Topics: Competition, Unbuilt, Megastructure, Mixed-Use
• Project Year: 1988
• Images: © Hans Kollhoff Architects

New technology will make it possible to live and work in the same area at the same time. A greater need for informal personal contact in the private sphere will contrast with the tendency towards specialisation at work. This will give rise to the idea of a compact city.

– Hans Kollhoff, 1988

The Compact City of Atlanpole Plans

Model | © Hans Kollhoff Architects

Axonometric | © Hans Kollhoff Architects

Sections | © Hans Kollhoff Architects

Floor Plans | © Hans Kollhoff Architects

Text by the Architects

The city of the future will be measured according to its immediate potential to have available living space. Those working in research labs or industrial buildings reach their tennis court and their homes in a matter of minutes. They sit at a street cafe, contemplating the distant landscape, knowing that in five minutes, they can be seated in the concert hall of a major city, in a ballroom, or a restaurant.

They have an unlimited range of possibilities to engage in different activities, and they can also make a last-minute decision. New technologies make it possible to live and work at the same time. The segmentation of life areas is losing its meaning. The borders between the professional field and the areas of activity are also mixed.

The tendency to professional specialization also demands spontaneous personal contact even in the private sphere. Therefore, we conceive the Atlanpole communication cen­ter like a huge house that holds the energy of a whole city, standing alone in the open landscape. A machine by the Erdre (an affluent of the Loire), a satellite of the city, Nantes. 

The Compact City of Atlanpole Plans

Site Plan | © Hans Kollhoff Architects

Sections | © Hans Kollhoff Architects

The Compact City of Atlanpole Image Gallery

About Hans Kollhoff Architects

Hans Kollhoff is a German architect and professor representative of both Postmodern and New Classical Architecture.

A classical building-style has always characterized Hans Kollhoff’s architecture, and the use of traditional materials, such as stone and brick, worked according to conventional methods.  Thus, he is sometimes criticized for creating an outdated “retro-architecture”, that loses itself in a nostalgic imitation of traditional formalism, Kollhoff’s work, with its attention to detail, may be read as a continuation of the work of early twentieth-century architects.

In Berlin, he has designed Potsdamer Platz, a high-rise tower in an old-New York brick style, for DaimlerChrysler. He was also responsible for the master planning of high-rise buildings on the Alexanderplatz. 

Since 2004 Kollhoff leads the “Bauakademie” project, whose goal is to reconstruct the Karl Friedrich Schinkel building, Berlin 1836, which was demolished in 1962.

Other works from Hans Kollhoff 

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