Architekten Schweger + Partner

ln autumn 1997 the Zentrum für Kunst und Medienkultur (ZKM) moved into the production hall of Industriewerke Karlsruhe 's former munitions factory, built by Stuttgart architect Philipp J . Manz in 1918. Harnburg architects Schweger +Partner were commissioned to convert this industrial structure, over 300m long and with 10 atria, after Rem Koolhaas's project of a new building for the ZKM immediately adjacent to the main station in Karlsruhe had been rejected in favour of re furbishing and converting the imposing old building. 

There is no doubt that the thinking that led to the decision to retain an industrial monument dating from the turn of the century and to bring it back to life for different purposes, rather then putting up a new building, was essentially practical in nature. And yet the result is unique, as a dialogue of a quality that could scarcely be matched anywhere in the world was initiated between the four-storey hall with its extensive atria and its new users, the ZKM institutes, the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung and several museums- Medienmuseum, Museum für Neue Kunst and Städtische Galerie. The architects were experienced in handling large industrial and office buildings, but also ambitious museum projectsamong others they designed the Wolfsburg Kunstmuseum -, and they succeeded not only in showing the historical building substance and its spatial potential to the best advantage, and in complementing this brilliantly inside and out; but they also combined the real architectural space and the imaginative space of modern pictorial worlds in an extremely exciting way.

Andrea Gleiniger studied art history at the University of Marburg. She now teaches at the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung in Karlsruhe, and before that she worked for many years in the DeutschesArchitekturmuseum in Frankfurt as an exhibition curator. Her principal fields are the history of estate building in the 20th century and the relationship between architecture, art and the new media. Bernhard Kroll studied architecture at the Technische Universität Hannover until 1985. Since then he has worked both as a planner and as a much sought-after architectural photographer.