Stadtlounge St. Gallen

In early 2005, construction workers finished work on the building on the Schreinerstrasse 6 in the Swiss town of St. Gallen. With this, the end of the building for the Raiffeisen-group was finished. What was left was an attractive re-design of the public space of the area. To get the best solution for the area, a competition was held. The goal was simple: to create a urban coherent area. To cut a long story short: the competition was won by the artists Pipilotti Rist and Carlos Martinez with a radical proposal, called Stadtlounge (city lounge).

To unify all the different segments of the rather clustered public space, they came up with a carpet that covers the area. With this, the area is formed like a living room, with various different themes, all dealing with interaction and meeting people in different ways - there are cafes, business-lounges, relax-lounges etcetera. And the designers took the concept to its extreme: the lights are designed just as lamps in a living room (instead of being street furniture), and all normal street-elements are "swept under the carpet"...