Please rotate your device.

Please rotate your device

Save the multi-purpose hall in Mannheim!

In 1975, a team led by Frei Otto designed and built a multi-purpose hall in Mannheim. It now faces demolition despite being a listed building. The art magazine ART (8/2016) asked Christoph Ingenhoven for ideas regarding new use concepts:

“The multi-purpose hall is an exemplary building: a wonderfully ingenious construction, a poetic space, a fine example of timber construction. Who can show me a building of this quality that faces possible demolition? To date there has been so much construction in Mannheim that one wonders: Why does the town administration not move into this multi-purpose hall? The city council, the city planning office, the district surveyors, they could all sit together here. Then they would at least speak to each other. I mean this very sincerely. In other places around the world we build the greatest open-plan offices, always looking to find beautiful, meaningful forms. Yet here we have one that is already built. Demolish it? This must not happen!
The multi-purpose hall was designed from the beginning with flexibility in mind. It could be a wonderful sculpture hall for a museum, a research and development center for one of the major companies in Mannheim such as BASF and Roche Diagnostics, an industrial design company or a university institute. I am convinced that it would be possible to achieve relatively manageable overheads in comparison to those associated with a new building, whilst simultaneously achieving huge spatial value. This will create a space in which one will enjoy working in. Myself included!” 

 

Newsletter Sign-Up

If you would like to be informed regularly about ingenhoven architects, you can subscribe to our press newsletter here. Your e-mail address will not be passed on to third parties and will only be used to subscribe to this newsletter. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link integrated in the newsletter.