Zollverein School Blog

Well, I’m back again after having taken some days off. I trust you haven’t missed the blog too much given the gorgeous summer we seem to have more or less over the northern hemisphere ;-)

Actually even though things might go slower when it’s that hot outside (and for most of us inside as well ;-) here at Zollverein School some interesting things will take place or already have taken place … but wait, wait let’s do it in chronological order:

1. On July 31st, 2006 the new Zollverein School main building will be officially handed over to the new owner: The Zollverein School of management and design
2. From August 1st, 2006 Zollverein School of management and design will have a new president. The new name to keep in mind for the future is: Andrej Kupetz
3. In September 2006 Zollverein School expects to start the first iteration of the Full-time MBA after having successfully started two classes with their Executive MBA in the last two years

So within the next couple of days I will update you about each of these issues. However let’s shortly address topic 1. right now: The new Zollverein School building.

As you might have noticed on the right hand side Flickr! bar from time to time I’ve uploaded some great pictures of the construction site (just click on any of these photos and you will be directed to our Flickr! portfolio). After all special kudos go to professional photographer Thomas Mayer for documenting the whole construction process from the ground-breaking ceremony over the topping out ceremony to the handover of keys ceremony upcoming Monday for those of you who are more remote than us here in Germany.

Actually the building is not just an ordinary architectural eyecatcher, because due to Zollverein’s status of a World Cultural Heritage you have to know that the Zollverein School building is the first new building to be erected on the Zollverein World Heritage site in 50 years! More notably the building is completed within a time frame of just under four years of planning and construction work

In early 2003, a jury examined the 37 designs entered in the international architecture competition and unanimously selected the design submitted by Tokyo-based architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of the SANAA (Sejima, Nishizawa & Associates) architecture studio. In the months that followed, their design was developed and fine-tuned by a tightly-knit team comprising the client, the architects, designers and construction experts. One of the most noteworthy innovations being used to turn the design into reality is a cost-cutting energy concept that will allow the Zollverein School to use the thermal pit water that is still pumped from the ground at the Zollverein as a source of energy.

The architects represent the new generation of Japanese rationalism. The avant-garde team is in hot demand around the world and recently won the architecture competition for the new building of the New York Museum of Contemporary Art. For the new Zollverein School of Management and Design building, SANAA came up with a design that picks up the basic functional and effective idea used by the original Zollverein architects Schupp and Kremmer. Sejima and Nishizawa have come up with a sharp-edged bright cube that is 34 meters high and has a footprint of 35 x 35 m. According to the jury, the design, which is characterised by extreme purism, fully meets all of the task’s multiple requirements. At the same time, the formal closed appearance of the over-sized cube is broken up by the irregular arrangement of windows. As a Far Eastern counterpart to the austere Bauhaus style, the building radiates an almost poetic power. The design is, as the director of the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York), Glenn D. Lowry, put it when he saw the model, ‘like a burst of jazz in the middle of a classical composition’.

Guests next Monday will include the architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa as well as the Minister for Building and Transport in North Rhine-Westphalia, Oliver Wittke, and finally the Lord Mayor of the city of Essen, Dr. Wolfgang Reiniger.

As I will be present at the ceremony I will surely write a posting about it next week while I’m sure Thomas Mayer will take some nice shots as well ;-) In the meantime stay tuned for the next posting on the new president of Zollverein School Andrej Kupetz!

This entry was posted by Ralf Beuker on Tuesday, July 25th, 2006 at 18:13 pm and is filed under Announcement, Events, Zollverein. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.