Kokerei Zollverein Redevelopment, Essen (DE)

In 2002, UNESCO declared the ensemble of coal and coke works in Essen a World Heritage Site. The Zollverein Foundation has set itself the goal of developing this unique facility into an important cultural and business location in the north of Essen.
The design consists of two main elements: The construction of new office buildings with approx. 35,000 m² and the conversion of the listed industrial buildings into a centre for cultural and creative service providers with approx. 20,000 m². The core element of the new building complex is the multi-bent and folded “accordion building”, which can be extended in a modular way. Its specially designed foreheads and side fronts covered with aluminium strips make is a distinctive and unmistakable landmark. Next to it, there is another unusual new building, the so-called “Wolkenbügel”, with a widely cantilevering glass floor.
The comb building, an approx. 200-metre-long narrow corridor area, on which six smaller workshops such as the tines of a comb are arranged, will be converted into a centre for cultural and creative service providers. The halls can be used as workshops, laboratories, representative studios or as loft-like presentation rooms for companies. The adjacent two-storey switching house serves as the “office building” for the ensemble’s operations. In a next step, additional service areas will be offered in the new building on the site of the adjacent former boiler house.

Client: RAG Montan Immobilien GmbH
Architektur: Dietrich | Untertrifaller
Competition: 2012, Recommendation of the Jury
Area: 20,400 m²