"Three Kings" Rheinfelden, CH

Master's Thesis by Hans Simon Becker-Wahl

The direct connection between architecture and site creates an inseparable bond between the two, from which neither can be so easily detached: The context. In the case of the former "Three Kings" inn, this has changed significantly since its construction in the 18th century - and especially in the decades of the 1970s and 80s - without the architecture subsequently adapting adequately to its changed surroundings.

At the time of laying the foundation stone of the inn - then a tavern - it was a pioneer of a new urban disposition at the gates of the city, outside the secured walls. The building defied great antipathies and marked the beginning of Rheinfelden's urban expansion into its surrounding countryside.

The construction of the Basel-Zurich railroad line and the construction of the expressway were the first major interventions in the context of the inn and transformed the situation from a suburban, rural area into an urban one. At the latest with the underpass of the railroad line and the accompanying lowering of the Zürcherstrasse as well as the construction of the high-rise residential buildings on the area of the former spa park, the building-period character of the inn disappeared completely. Its address formation became increasingly difficult and the original context disappeared, while a new, urban environment dominated by traffic took its place.

The solution of this conflict, the addressability as well as the insertion of the inn into its new context are the central tasks of the design work.