Documentation center
1159-BLR-DE-2017
Architect: blrm Architekt*innen
Client: Unknown
Status: Competition (2017)
Clasification: Honour mention
Location: Garzweiler, Germany
Coordinates: 51.0634300, 6.4966913
Climate: Temperate, Oceanic / maritime
Materials: Concrete, Wood
Environment: Countryside
Visualizer: Studio Dragusha
Scale: 1.235 ㎡ Medium
Types: Archive, Institutional

It is as if a gigantic ball of earth has risen from the ground. Even from a distance, the new documentation center appears as a sculptural frozen moment – it is uncertain whether the piece of earth is being inserted or removed. An act of human intervention in the landscape that has been altered by human hands for centuries. The lifting of the soil symbolically underscores its central role for the landscape space and acts as a meaningful bridge between the past, the present and the future. Where the mining of brown coal left a landscape shaped by human hand, the valuable loess soil provides a lush post-mining landscape. The building itself becomes a place of change.

Team: Jan Busemeyer, Rüdiger Ebel, Volker Halbach, Jannes Wurps, Lara Diederichs | Landscape: Rabe Landschaften | Post date: 21/11/2022 | Views: 1.264