Rising from what was way too long just an irregularly shaped parking lot is quickly Baltimore’s latest architectural masterpiece, the new University of Baltimore law school. With $450/square foot most likely one of the most expensive educational buildings in town it also promise to be one of the greenest and in many ways exotic. Like very few others it is the result of a true international design competition that brought the first price to Stefan Behnisch of Stuttgart; a victory over Foster + Partners of London, Dominique Perrault Architecture of Paris, Moshe Safdie and Associates, Inc. of Somerset, Mass., and SmithGroup Companies, Inc. of Washington, D.C.
Seen from the fabulously restored Railway Express building on St Paul Street, the new law school rises just like any other building, concrete floor slab over concrete floor slab. Nothing points yet to its singularity, at least not from this distance and angle.
Yet, what will make this building special is already in these bones. For example, the underside of these slabs will remain exposed. No ceilings will be hung to hide electric wires, ducts and the other nerves of the building. The floor is the ceiling and all the “stuff” is already incorporated in the concrete. One would not know from looking over to the skeleton rising. And it is somewhat comforting to know, that greatness can start out looking so normal.
I started my professional career in the same two story building in which Guenther Behnisch, Stefans' father had his Stuttgart-Sillenbuch office. Working in one of the off-shoots that great offices often not only tolerate but nurture, I was always taken by the Behnisch architecture which celebrated lightness, airiness and elegance. After having been in the early discussions about the design competition for this very project, I often regret that it was not me who brought Stefan to Baltimore. At the time I mistakenly thought that European firms would not participate in a competition that was not organized according to their strict competition standards in which design professionals have the last word in the jury and thus determine who gets the commission not owners. Still, has a Stuutgarter I feel a kind of homepride seeing "a Behnisch" go up in Baltimore.
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