Location

The castle is located in the center of The Hague, close to the railwaystation. At the North-West side stand already high rising scrapers.

Shape

The mainshape is a castle with six rectangular towers at the corners and splitting the long side of the interior in two atriums. The wallls of the castle are accesible to the main public. In the center stands the very slender maintower decorated at the top with a Red Rose hanging in glass before the facade, lit at night. All towers are topped with red shining spires.

Innercourts

The innercourts are covered by a transparant roof and forms a greenhouse in the atrium. The inside is heated and has high rising botanic plants, bamboo, trees and a round fountain in the middle. The roof is dome shaped and composed of a hexagonal steelframes covered with triple layers of ETFE (plastic), which let 97% of the UV through.

Functions and Livelihood

At the street level sunken arcades house the two storey shops, which face both to the outside streets and to the atriums. Shopping area at street level is 5.000 mē and indoor second floor 4.000mē. Shop genre should be luxery furniture etc.

In the atrium there should be organized regular markets with a cultural theme, like bookmarket, special homedecorations handmade.

Above the arched shops is a round going balustrade which opens to semi public offices like lawyers, accountans, housebrokers etc. these too are in the two storey high arched units. Higher laying floors could be allocated to office or luxery appartments. The maintower and hence the highest floors with the widest views should be appartments anyway.

Entrance

The entrance to the building is through two story high arched gates, which open to the innercourt. And should provide pride to the entrants. Underneath the building and the atrium is a parking. Daylight enters the parking through the fountains glass bottom.

Decorations

Besides the raw outlines of the building as in this photo's the actual facades of the towers and walls will be individually designed and modified.

Philosophy

What makes a building durable?
What makes a building unique?

Well, all old buildings in towns, which still draw crowds, were once build for rich people, that wanted to show off how well they were doing. And to show off their increadible richness they didn't order the cheapest building with the least decorations.

No, they ordered lavish decorations and refined shapes. No cost nor effort was saved to make something remarkable. Every square millimeter of the outer and inner surface was used to express their state in the society or their view.

And so if you look back and ask whether it was durable, you can answer: Yes, the art and decorations made it so.

Most modern day achitecture is a waste of space and money, because a lack of effort in the design and decorations simply doesn't produce the added value to stand the tooth of time.







Castello della Rosa Nera, formerly known as zwarte madonna: BVO

Middle Tower

height

wide in m

A in mē

floors

Straight body

60 +60 m

25

625

40

25000

25000

Spire Middle

25

Floor

1

23,8

566,44

1

566

2

22,6

510,76

1

511

3

21,4

457,96

1

458

4

20,2

408,04

1

408

5

19

361

1

361

6

17,8

316,84

1

317

7

16,6

275,56

1

276

8

15,4

237,16

1

237

9

14,2

201,64

1

202

10

13

169

1

169

11

11,8

139,24

1

139

total Spire

3644

Rounding at foot

10

25

250

12

3000

3000

Total MainTower

31644

Walls

in m

number of

longsides

120

2

240

shortsides

30

3

90

Total length

330

width

15

pro floor

4950

floors

10

Total Walls

49500

Little Towers

Side Towers

0,5

2

1

Corner Towers

0,75

4

3

Total towers

4

pro floor

16

256

numer of floors

8

Total little towers till wall height

8192

Three floors above wall

pro floor

16

256

number of towers

6

number of floors

3

Total floors above wall

4608

Litlle spires

16

1

14

196

1

196

2

12

144

1

144

3

10

100

1

100

4

8

64

1

64

total pro turret

504

all 6 turrets

6

3024

total little towers

15824

Total CityCastle

96968

Consulting Architects:
Paul RutjesMScTechnical University Delft
Francois VerhoefMScTechnical University Delft
Consulting Structural Designer:
Eef SiemelinkMScTechnical University Delft