The techno scene is the only international pop culture to have emerged from Germany to date. Its success story began in November 1989, when the euphoric union of East and West German youths at the first techno parties after the fall of the Berlin Wall laid the foundations for today's Berlin club culture and its cosmopolitan, hierarchy-free reputation.
In the venues that opened up in the east of the city after German reunification, the new music and dance culture surrounding electronic music was able to develop like nowhere else in the world at the beginning of the 1990s. People met up for illegal parties in buildings with unclear ownership. In 1989, the first Love Parade took place on Kurfürstendamm, which later contributed significantly to Berlin's reputation as a techno capital.

The techno track is not a piece in the corresponding aesthetic sense, but a "part" of the material. As a result, the focus here is on the sound design and not, as in the song, on an intended context of meaning.

Berlin's new club mile on the Spree is a contested terrain. Citizens, subculture and investors have different interests. This is particularly evident in the "Sink the Media Spree" campaign, which is trying to oppose the Media Spree project.
On the border between the Berlin districts of Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain lies the island-like Oberbaum City. It is part of the Media Spree project, which, for example, with the O2 World (adjacent to the west), Universal Music and MTV (adjacent to the south), is influencing the socio-cultural environment of the two districts, which is largely characterized by students, and is therefore not considered controversial for nothing.

Oberbaum-City is located in a historically evolved environment. In the immediate vicinity of architectural monuments such as the former granaries on the Spree, where MTV and Universal now have their German headquarters. The Oberbaum Bridge connects Oberbaum City with the newly developed Kreuzberg cultural district. Here you will find cinemas, cafés, variety shows, clubs and trendy restaurants.

In the meantime, electronic musicians of the first generation have ambitions in the direction of art and away from pure partying. A building is to be constructed on the corner of Warschauer Platz and Rother Strasse that combines club culture as it has grown with new forms of listening to, researching, developing and making music, and promotes the exchange of ideas.
In addition to clubs and a "philharmonic hall" for electronic music, this also includes space for music production and the marketing of labels, as well as an institute where the components of music production, such as recording, mixing and mastering, can be learned. In addition, an information center with a media library and library (holdings on computer science, mathematics, acoustics, business administration, music theory, etc.) will be created.
Overlaps between the various functional areas are desirable, but not useful everywhere. In particular, the overlapping of access to the individual areas must be carefully considered, as they are visited at different times of the day and night and by different clientele. The building has increased technical requirements, particularly for cooling and ventilation. Some rooms have higher acoustic requirements. Some of the uses do not require daylight.

overview map / Übersichtsplan

My design results from the idea of designing a building for the existing "Berlin-Mitte Institute for Electronic Music" in Berlin that does credit to the unique work in this field and the exploration of the subject within the various individual uses. Research and exchange, teaching and learning, production and marketing are to function here together with celebrations and a rather new form of listening to music for this area, which is necessitated by the constant further development and experimental handling of electronic sounds.

The location was deliberately chosen to the east of the former course of the Wall in the so-called "Oberbaum City". Today, Oberbaum City is one of Berlin's creative hotspots. One of Berlin's most modern service and commercial locations has been created here on the site of the former Osram factory. The architecture of the Wilhelminian era has been supplemented with modern elements of glass, wood, stone and steel. The landmark is the light tower built in 1919. The building, which was Berlin's first high-rise building, housed the Narva light bulb testing station during the GDR era, which was visible from afar at night. Oberbaum-City takes its name from the nearby Oberbaum Bridge, which connects Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain across the Spree.

Oberbaum-City benefits considerably from its good transport connections. The subway, S-Bahn, streetcar and bus station are right on the doorstep. Stralauer Allee and Warschauer Straße are among the city's most important traffic arteries. The renovated Ostbahnhof station with IC and ICE connections is just one S-Bahn stop away.

property and surroundings

The property is located in a historically evolved environment. In the immediate vicinity of architectural monuments such as the former granaries on the Spree, where MTV and Universal now have their German headquarters. The Oberbaum Bridge connects Oberbaum City with the newly developed Kreuzberg cultural district. Here you will find cinemas, cafés, variety shows, clubs and trendy restaurants. In the other direction, the Warschauer Brücke connects with the Friedrichshain neighborhood.

The construction of the new Warschauer Straße S-Bahn station and the relocation of the Warschauer Straße U-Bahn station meant that the U-Bahn repair hall and the U-Bahn station could be repurposed.

The areas on the line freed up by the relocation, in particular the entrance to the repair hall, are to be used in future as a public square and green pedestrian link between Oberbaum and Warschauer Brücke, and relieve the previously used narrow and heavily frequented footpaths along Warschauer Straße. The highly frequented "meeting point" Warschauer Straße subway station will be preserved and enhanced by the new square despite the removal of the station. The repair hall itself could be used as the "campus heart" of a new "media campus" to be built on the brownfield land to the north of the site and could include a canteen, exhibition and event rooms, for example.

site map / Lageplan

The cubature and location of the new tower creates a "city landmark" that is visible from afar along the Warschauer Brücke-Oberbaum-Brücke axis, thus not only emphasizing the Warschauer Straße S-Bahn station junction, but also locating the area around the site, which is otherwise characterized by a rather fragmented and diffuse cityscape, along the axis. The urban space within Oberbaum-City will be adequately redensified by the new building on the plot to be planned. (Data sheet to follow with presentation)
A second entrance level will be created at the level of the track, on which the building will be accessed via a footbridge.

south elevation / Ansicht Süd

east elevation / Ostansicht

north elevation / Nordansicht

west elevation / Westansicht

2. basement floor / 2. Untergeschoss

1. basement floor / 1. Untergeschoss

ground floor / Erdgeschoss

The specific location of the individual uses on the site and in the building is a response to different requirements in the organization of the same, such as the number of visitors and clientele, operating hours, address formation and accessibility, but also to the respective opportunity to represent the building to the outside world.
The information center, general administration and labels form the architectural counterpart to the "glass cube" of the existing tower. Along Rotherstrasse, the tower takes up the eaves height of the existing building by receding from the street for 6 storeys from the 5th floor upwards.

1. floor / 1. Obergeschoss

With the media library, the information center has a place to linger at square level with a view of the hustle and bustle opposite. - The Void offers space for a wide variety of events, but can also be used as an outdoor space for the café in summer. The clubs located in the upper end of the tower are a counterpart to the glass and steel of the existing tower and thus reinforce the communication between the two tower volumes and the resulting tension. The roof area of the tower is assigned to the after-hours club. Here you can watch the sun rise in the morning.
The institute rooms are accessed via the enclosed inner courtyard on the east side of the site. The offices are oriented towards this courtyard, while the conference rooms, which can be interconnected, are located on the north side of the property. A 2.5 m deep and 2 m high recess between the small hall of the concert hall below and the conference rooms emphasizes and separates them.

2. floor / 2. Obergeschoss

3. floor / 3. Obergeschoss

The base of the new building is embedded between the two towers and is structured around the large hall of the concert hall, which is cut into the middle, taking up the theme of the courtyard formation of the surrounding buildings and translating it in reverse. The result is an 8 m high foyer zone below the hall, which forms the center of the concert hall. The surrounding 2.5 m wide, glazed "joint" functions as a buffer zone between the hall and the institute's uses on the 2nd and 3rd floors. At the same time, it acts as a signpost, as the inner circulation of the concert hall runs underneath it and is the thermal and acoustic closure of the concert hall. The entire routing of the concert hall leads through the common foyer on the 1st floor. The bar and checkroom are centrally located here. Both concert halls are accessed from here. All visitors to the Konzerthaus have the opportunity to attend any events on the roof of the plinth via a staircase on the 1st floor.
During the day, the curved surface of the hall is intended to reflect diffuse sunlight into the institute areas and the entrance area of the information center. Conversely, when it is dark, colored artificial light is used to highlight the joint and the hall, including the stairs below. This light installation, together with that of the Narva Tower and the illuminated edges of the closed cube at the top of the new building, forms the location of Oberbaum City in the dark.

4. + 5. floor / 4. + 5 Obergeschoss

6. + 7. floor / 6. + 7. Obergeschoss

8. + 9. floor / 8. + 9. Obergeschoss

10. + 11. floor / 10. + 11. Obergeschoss

12. + 13. floor / 12. + 13. Obergeschoss

14. + 15. floor / 14. + 15. Obergeschoss

16. floor / 16. Obergeschoss

section / Längsschnitt

section / Querschnitt

section / Querschnitt

models / Modelle

"For the techno track, it is not the reference to meaning and thus a narrative structural concept that shapes its form, but rather its "design", a shaping related to the technical process of production, analogous to industrially manufactured objects. Segment and loop, plateau and consistency, level and node, stream and incision are the sound-structural form concepts of the techno world." (Peter Wicke, 1997)

The new building is intended to incorporate these concepts and translate them into architecture. The special uses of this building appear with their individual characteristics on the outside and emphasize the uniqueness of the building but also of the individual use itself. A kind of "building collage" analogous to the "track collage" of a "DJ set".

In keeping with the listed red bricks, the façade of the building will be gray in the same value (70). The building is to be constructed in in-situ concrete, which will be ground, polished (and milled). (see collection of ideas for the façade)
An installation like the "weathervane" could create an effect of movement of the façade through the many elements turning in the wind, and thus create a reference to the music. I can also imagine a brick construction that creates this effect through 3-d offset bricks as a shadow progression of a day.