Anker Palais

Here is another Falk Gundel design for GK NF 16, a very romantic Palais. The Ankerstein.center building plans are here (log in required).

I really like the overall impression of a classical, symmetric two-wing building. The highlight is clearly the entrance area with the stairways and the high windows.

The foundation and beginnings of the staircase

First floor with beautiful high windows for the central ballroom (?)

First beams for the ceiling

I have mixed feelings about the ambition to use up nearly all stones from GK NF 16 for the model.

It does allow the largest possible building, and is a nice intellectual challenge for the designer. Some of the stones are used up in neat and creative ways, like the 277s mentioned above or all the tiny 1/8th thickness stones as perfectly appropriate ornaments on the stairways.

First roof laywr with a very nice use of the steep roof stones 277

But the roof construction is really straining to cover the area at all, and some ornaments like the 293s on the wing corners and the blue 210s and 320s at the foot of the columns in the back of the building look a bit like they were added just to have them used somewhere without having a real functional or aesthetic purpose.

It was a lot of fun to build, though, and as I said the stairways are truely spectacular and nice.

The complete building.

I'm not so excited by the roof - I like large roof areas, but the KG NF 16 stone mix barely covers this huge area and leads to some strange compromises. The use of all the stones 277 in different orientations is creative and decorative, but there are many different angles, and the highest roof layer leaves large gaps to expose the rather colorful construction of the last layers under the roof stones.