Mayne event

What would you expect a bank headquarters overlooking a bean field in the Italian provinces to look like? A converted barn slumbering beneath a pantiled roof perhaps?

What you probably wouldn’t be expecting is a building that ascends sheer out of the vegetation at the crazy angle of 14° off vertical, but that’s what you get at the £25m Hypo Alpe Adria bank at the edge of Udine in north-eastern Italy.

Projecting flights of escape stairs add another angle of tilt and the whole curtain-walled slab block comes with two kinks along its length so it leans southwards at either end, leaving only the middle section rising vertically.

As with Hypo bank’s other two headquarters buildings in Zagreb, Croatia, and Klagenfurt, Austria, it is the work of Morphosis, the Californian practice whose principal Thom Mayne won the Pritzker prize two years ago.

Mayne has forged a dynamic style that celebrates modern technology and radiates all the exuberance of California. Yet the style looks perfectly at home next to the Italian bean field, which basks in a similar sunny climate to the American West Coast.

The slab block has a depth of just 14m, which allows daylight and ventilation to enter through openable windows on either side of the building. The 14° southward slope is justified by offering solar shading to the south-facing facade.

The central section of the slab block is vertical, as it contains the main lift and service core; and this is wrapped in a wide, open-tread staircase that threads its way through a spacious atrium. The atrium and staircase also serve as the social core of the building where, as Mayne says, “they support chance encounters and interaction between all the users”.

At ground level, the slab block spreads out in interlocking, single-storey wings that house an auditorium, secure archive, a bank branch and a fitness centre with a pool. This gym stretches as far as an existing public park and local residents are invited to use its amenities.

Although located in a small Italian city, the Hypo bank’s 15,900m2 headquarters will radiate as strong an image across the world as any high-finance high-rise in the City of London or Manhattan. And as a bonus, it does far more than a converted barn would to engage with the local community, which also provides its workforce.