The gymnasium becomes an orchestra hall, changing rooms are transformed into a library: the Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium needed more space for its music programme. LRO delivered a discreet extension while also demonstrating how a delicate 1950s ensemble can be brought into the 21st century in line with listed building requirements.
Loriot is among the school’s well-known alumni, alongside Eduard Mörike, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and many others. The Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium takes great pride in its humanistic tradition, which dates back to its founding year in 1686. Following severe destruction during the Second World War, the school moved into a new building in 1957, situated on one of Stuttgart’s prime elevated locations. Ever since, its light-filled architecture with generously glazed façades has offered fantastic views across the city. If unobstructed views encourage free thinking, the school is likely to continue producing great intellectual figures in the future. Particularly as it now also offers a secondary school stream for musically gifted students. Demand for this programme recently became so high that the existing facilities were no longer sufficient. The city used the necessary extension as an opportunity to comprehensively refurbish the listed building as well. The commission was awarded to the architectural practice LRO Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei — a perfect match, as the firm not only has extensive experience in school design, but has also developed over recent decades a formal vocabulary that clearly echoes the flowing optimism of 1950s architecture.
Airy 1950s ensemble
On a sunny afternoon in January, I meet project manager Klaus Hildenbrand for a tour of the building. The existing structure consists of four volumes, which the architects Adolf and Hans Bregler carefully composed within the mature tree population at the time, ensuring that the large glazed areas benefited from natural shading from the outset. Serving as the backbone of the school complex is a long five-storey block extending perpendicularly into the hillside. Corridors are located on the western side, while the classrooms face east — oriented towards the morning sun for the half-day school schedule typical at the time and, almost incidentally, towards views across the city. To the right of the main block, a projecting three-storey volume containing additional classrooms forms the school’s frontage towards the street. On the far left, a raised, low-rise administration wing spans the former assembly hall and break area. Its original function can still be read in the natural stone flooring with its rough-hewn appearance, which continues seamlessly from the exterior into the interior, even though the space now serves as the cafeteria. Higher up the slope stands the fourth building volume, housing a large hall that formerly served as a gymnasium and is now used as an orchestra hall. Thanks to this airy overall layout — virtually unthinkable in contemporary new-build projects for economic and energy-efficiency reasons — even corridors and ancillary spaces benefit from abundant daylight. The Breglers gave each building volume a slightly different façade treatment and further differentiated every visible elevation by subtly expressing varying interior functions on the exterior. One example is the foyer of the main block, which is distinguished from the classrooms by its own window grid. All of this helps to pleasantly soften the scale of the school building, which already comprised around 9,500 m² before the extension.
New uses, concealed volumes
Klaus Hildenbrand explains the refurbishment concept. To accommodate the new music rooms, the main block received an annex on its northern side, invisible from the street and therefore fully in keeping with the listed building requirements. The shape of the site resulted in a trapezoidal floor plan, which improves the acoustics for vocal and instrumental lessons by reducing flutter echoes between parallel walls. A large orchestra hall was accommodated within the former gymnasium. As it no longer met the standards of the City of Stuttgart and both the roof and southern façade had meanwhile become unacceptable in terms of fire protection regulations, more extensive intervention was possible here. Completely refitted, the hall is now designed for concerts and events with several hundred attendees. The small adjoining area that once stored mats and gym equipment now houses the control desk and sound engineering facilities. The hall’s acoustic qualities will still have to prove themselves in practice, but even a quick hand-clap test in the unoccupied space reveals a promising reverberation — neither too long nor too short. The former changing rooms on the floor below have been converted into the school library.
LRO concealed a further extension discreetly within the courtyard. On the lower ground floor, the new gymnasium is embedded into the hillside, while the ground floor remains open as a covered break area and the upper storeys, raised on columns, accommodate the science department. This new wing plays an important role in the careful treatment of the listed building fabric: by concentrating almost all functions requiring extensive building services installations in one area, major technical interventions within the existing structure could largely be avoided. The extension also provided space for a lift, which now enables barrier-free access to all levels of the long main block. Last but not least, the staircase within the extension simultaneously serves as an escape route for the existing building. Previously, the circulation concept had been wholly inadequate from a fire safety perspective. A cascading staircase connected all floors through the wide corridors — creating generous visual connections, but also allowing smoke to spread unhindered in the event of a fire. The escape staircase is therefore now complemented by new bypass doors between the classrooms. These form an enfilade arrangement whose endpoint takes advantage of a special feature of the sloping site: every floor has direct level access to the outside.
A dual design strategy
As one moves through the building, the two different design approaches adopted by LRO to distinguish between the new and existing structures become apparent. The extension wings pick up on characteristic features of the original building, including the raised construction, reinforced concrete frame structure and ribbon façades. The cladding of corrugated fibre cement panels — a material typical of the 1950s, recalling for example Paul Baumgarten’s Eternit House in Berlin — also establishes a connection with the existing architecture. Nevertheless, the extensions remain clearly recognisable as autonomous contemporary additions. The approach taken in the existing building is entirely different. Here, the architects deliberately refrained from imposing their own architectural signature, placing themselves fully in service of the listed structure and concealing unavoidable interventions as discreetly as possible. For example, the stair balustrades were too low and the vertical steel bars too widely spaced. The architects welded an additional section onto the top of each balustrade before reinstalling the original wooden handrail, which now sits at the required height. The spacing between the bars was reduced using diagonally arranged wave-shaped rods, familiar from typical 1950s balcony railings. The component appears as though it had never been altered. It is remarkable that the heritage authorities accepted this approach, as conservation practice usually places great emphasis on the legibility of interventions and tends to reject what is often described as “creative heritage invention” — historicising reinterpretations that distort the original. On the other hand, the new detail avoids disruptive visual contrasts and contributes to a harmonious and coherent spatial impression.
Energy modernisation without compromise
The energy-efficiency upgrade was carried out almost invisibly. Most of the windows could be restored. In the white steel frames of the foyer, corridors and cafeteria, the original single glazing was replaced with insulating glass; thanks to the white spacers between the panes, the alteration is barely noticeable. The timber composite windows in the classrooms were even preserved in their entirety. Within the cavity between the panes, the inner glass received a thermal insulation coating and the outer pane a solar control film in order to reduce energy transmission. The pivot windows are now safer thanks to opening restrictors. For the original projecting arm awnings, the architects had the mechanisms refurbished and replaced only the fabric with a replica material. The windows near the teachers’ desks, originally without any solar shading, were fitted with awnings using similar mechanisms and the same fabric. Finally, the roofs are now greened and better insulated. The additional loads could only be accommodated by the structurally optimised existing building because the old foam concrete insulation was replaced with a significantly lighter material.
In many areas, concrete elements were carefully restored in line with heritage conservation requirements, hazardous materials removed, steel components derusted, original colour schemes reinstated following paint analysis, existing fire doors upgraded with seals and protective films, furniture dismantled, refurbished and reinstalled, electrical systems replaced, and much more besides — all carried out almost invisibly.
Walking through the building feels like travelling back to the 1950s, such is the remarkable presence of the original fabric. In addition to the architects, the City of Stuttgart also deserves praise for its willingness to invest substantial funds in this demanding refurbishment project and to continue financing the building’s inevitably costly upkeep. One can only hope that pupils and teachers will appreciate this commitment when they move in this autumn. It is a pity I have already completed my Abitur — I would gladly do it all over again in surroundings like these.
Online publication in db 4|2026: Denkmalgerecht saniert – Gymnasium in Stuttgart von LRO
Text: Christian Schönwetter
The energy-efficiency upgrade was carried out almost invisibly. A large proportion of the windows was realised using our GUTMANN Mira contour system. Combining a durable aluminum exterior shell with a high-quality wood interior, the system unites technical precision with a clean, timeless aesthetic and integrates sensitively into the listed building fabric.
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