Oswald Mathias Ungers. House in Belvederestraße

Between 1958 and 1959, Oswald Mathias Ungers designed and built the Belvederestraße house in Cologne-Müngersdorf, which was to be not only a home for himself and his family but also for his pro- fessional studio and two small apartments. The corner plot between Quadratherstraße and Belvederestraße presented several particu- larly restrictive characteristics that influenced the design: the ad- jacent building was characterised by a pitched roof with a timber tympanum, there was a need to respect the alignment of the façades, the orientation was defined as well as the prescribed height of the eaves and the depth of the construction. The conscious acceptance of all these limitations led to the realization of a strongly articu- lated house, mainly composed of independent elements. The new construction thus stood alongside the existing buildings, continu- ing the façade and following the visual image of the street, taking up the shape of the plot with a rounded structure on the corner and standing in continuity with the roof of the adjacent house.