Elsässertor II, Office and Commercial Building
The Elsässertor [its name translates as Alsace Gate] constitutes, with the French railway station, the western extremity of the station complex. The Elsässertor has been erected on the track bed of the former site of the SNCF express freight building, which was countersunk relative to the street level. In terms of its location and construction, the building is oriented along the axis formed by the railway tracks and the interior access road (which also services the parking garage) running parallel to them. The street-side elevation deviates slightly away and back from the line of the street, allowing the resulting space to be seen as a square or a boulevard. Typical materials from the railways are used in the design of the immediate environs to link this newly created urban space with the railway territory beyond it. Railway ballast is rolled into the asphalt. Plant beds are filled with the same ballast and enclosed within railway rails. The birches and false acacias planted in the ballast beds are typical first colonisers of disused railway lines.
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