Schweger + Partner, Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe (Opus 34)

by Gleiniger, Andrea; Kroll, Bernhard

• ISBN13: 9783930698349
• ISBN10: 393069834X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-03-09
• Publisher: Edition Axel Menges

Summary

Text in English and German. In autumn 1997 the Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) moved into the production hall of a former munitions factory in Karlsruhe, built by Stuttgart architect Philipp Jakob Manz in 1914-18. Hamburg architects Schweger plus Partner were commissioned to convert this industrial structure, over 300 m long and with 10 atria, after Rem Koolhaas' project of a new building for the ZKM immediately adjacent to the main station in Karlsruhe had been rejected in favour of refurbishing and converting the imposing old building. There is no doubt that the thinking that led to the decision to retain an industrial monument dating from the turn of the century and to bring it back to life for different purposes, rather than putting up a new building, was essentially practical in nature. And yet the result is unique, as a dialogue of a quality that could scarcely be matched anywhere in the world was initiated between the four-storey hall with it's extensive atria and its new users, the ZKM institutes, the Staatliche Hochschule fur Gestaltung and several museums -- Medienmuseum, Museum fur Neue Kunst and Stadtische Galerie.The architects were experienced in handling large industrial and office buildings, but also ambitious museum projects -- among others they designed the Wolfsburg Kunstmuseum -, and they succeeded not only in showing the historical building substance and it's spatial potential to the best advantage, and in complementing this brilliantly inside and out; but they also combined the real architectural space and the imaginative space of modern pictorial worlds in an exciting way.

Table of Contents

From the blue flower to the Blue Limbo: the Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe	7	(13)
Plans	20	(8)
Floor plans	20	(4)
Sections	24	(2)
Detail sections	26	(2)
Pictorial section	28	(1)
Exterior views	28	(10)
Entrance hall	38	(4)
Access link	42	(2)
Music studio	44	(2)
Media theatre	46	(2)
Video centre	48	(1)
Library	49	(1)
Museums	50	(4)
Atrium in the section of the building which is not yet finished	54