The motto of the Open Monument Day 2020 “The Monument: Remember. Preserve. Rethink” refers to an important field of work in architecture: the reactivation of historical buildings.
Since the 16th century the Tönnishof used to be a farmhouse. Back in 1884 the farmer couple Dietrich Wilhelm and Elsa Tönnis build a modern, square courtyard complex for the stables, barns and the equipment, as well as a villa connected in the axis of the square as a stately home. The Tönnishof survived the World War I and II without damages. It was the construction of the new train line that sealed the fate of the complex. The high railroad embankment separated the farmland from the courtyard and required the partial demolition of the complex. As a result the last farmer, Günter Tönnis, decided to give up and sell the Tönnishof in 1977. In 1978, Prof. Eckhard Gerber first purchased the neo-classical style villa, which he had restored and has used since then as a residential building and an architectural office with currently 110 employees.
On September 13, 2020, Prof. Eckhard Gerber and his wife, the restorer Anngrit Gerber, will give a tour at the Tönnishof.
On the site of a former parking garage in Bochum, List Develop Commercial is realizing the City-Tower-BO as investor and project developer. According to a design by Gerber Architects, a mix of working, habitation and living will be created on approx. 20,000 m². The planning of the mixed-use building in the center of Bochum, which is more than 60 meters high, offers the opportunity to rethink the area of a former bunker and then a parking garage in a top urban development location. In keeping with Bochum’s versatility as a city of science and a cultural magnetc, the City-Tower, located in the immediate vicinity of the main train station, offers a versatile mix of uses. Hotel, office, serviced apartments, gastronomy and retail are spread over 21 levels.
The vertical densification concept of the City-Tower is more than just a sensible solution for the corner site between Südring, Universitätsstraße and railroad lines. With the chessboard-like skyscraper silhouette, Bochum will receive another striking building block in the city’s entrée. A spacious, two-story foyer and large panoramic windows emphasize the conceptual openness of the City Tower. From the Skybar you can enjoy the view of Bochum even in the evening hours. The new multi-storey parking lot positioned behind the high-rise offers sufficient parking space for users and visitors. The City-Tower with its retail offerings is also an enrichment for the residents. As the “gateway to the city centre”, the City-Tower forms an architectural welcoming gesture at one of the most important access roads to Bochum city centre and opposite the main railway station.
Visualization: ©Gerber Architekten
This year, the exhibition at the Dortmunder U celebrates the tenth anniversary of the former brewery building as a centre of art and creativity. For ten years the TU Dortmund Campus City has also been at home there. In the spectrum of culture and science in the digital age, the U serves the urban society as a place of discourse in an ongoing conversation about society, structural change and urbanity. The anniversary exhibition “UmBAUkultur” allows a look into the past of the U and its transformation from an industrial production site to a place of remembrance of industrial culture and finally to cultural buildings. The exhibition ‘UmBAUkultur’ is part of the research project ‘Stadtbauten Ruhrgebiet’. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and is a cooperation between the TU Dortmund, the Museum Folkwang and the Baukunstarchiv NRW.
Due to the current events there is no official opening event and the opening hours may change. Start: 22.08.2020 End: 30.09.2020
Venue: Dortmunder U, Leonie-Reygers-Terasse, 44137 Dortmund |Tue, Wed 14 – 18 hrs | Thu 16 – 20 hrs |Fri – Sun 11 – 15 hrs
You can find current information at:
https://www.tu-dortmund.de/universitaet/veranstaltungen/detail/umbaukultur-2931/ https://www.dortmunder-u.de/veranstaltung/umbaukultur-gerber-architekten-und-die-transformation-des-dortmunder-u
Our new building for the Faculty of geosciences received 3rd prize in the category Intelligent redensification. This category, which was awarded for the first time, honors innovative solutions in the field of dual inner development of cities. The building is convincing with its typological concept. In the future, the LMU’s Department for Earth- and Environmental Sciences and the Bavarian Natural History Collections will come together under one roof. A public exhibition and entrance hall, the glass “showcase of science”, will be located in the center of the meander-shaped new building. The multi-layered urban added value convinced the jury: “Not only has an urgently needed, coherent campus structure been created here, but at the same time unused urban space has been filled with new public functions”, said Reiner Nagel, Chair of the Federal Foundation of Baukultur, in his laudation. The Polis Award 2020 was presented at the Polis Convention, which this year took place digitally for the first time under the motto “make change happen”.
The competition for the replacement school centre with sports hall and outdoor facilities has been decided: Gerber Architekten received 3rd prize in the realization competition for its design.
A new replacement building is planned for the Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium, the community school Ossenmoorpark and the district library and school library. The two existing sports halls are also to be replaced by new buildings. The new school building is to be understood as an open structure that reacts in a differentiated way to the granularity of its surroundings and wants to “interlock” with them in scale and formulation. The special features of the location, such as topography and existing greenery, form the basis for the multi-layered formulation of a very differentiated building structure. The heart of the school centre is the assembly hall. It is designed as a four-storey atrium, with reference to the outside space on all levels and in all directions. In it all paths within the school centre meet – from all sides and at all levels.
Gerber Architekten have taken over the office of Kossmann-Maslo-Architekten in Münster, Alter Steinweg 34 with all employees, all current projects as well as the existing office space.
So we now have a new location of Gerber Architekten in Münster. The former office Kossmann Maslo worked exclusively on projects in the health care sector, which are now expanding our capacities with a team of experienced architects to include hospital and clinic construction and further strengthen our know-how in this field. Mr. Maslo will continue to work for us and support us especially in the area of acquisition in this special field. We are pleased about the new location in Münster, greet all new employees and welcome “them all” to our Gerber Architekten family.
Sarah Centgraf, Head of Digital Innovation at DBZ Deutsche BauZeitschrift, talks to Eckhard Gerber about which rooms motivate people to learn, what makes a successful educational building and how learning and architecture will change in the times of Corona.
Under the following link you can listen to the podcast:
Gerber Architects have received recognition for their design in the ‘Young Stage’ competition. A building was to be planned on the theatre grounds in the area of the current Young Opera House, which was intended from the outset as a temporary venue, to be used jointly by the Children’s and Youth Theatre (KJT), the Opera House and, for selected productions, the Ballet. The idea is based on a composition of a compact ‘House of Theatre Worlds’ and a ‘floating roof’, which connects all adjacent functions in a natural and maximally open manner, thereby dissolving the boundaries between outside and inside. For the young stage of the Theater Dortmund, a structurally clear and reduced structure is proposed, which captures and calms the existing heterogeneous structure of opera house and playhouse in an urban space.
The quarter is to grow together to form a complete ensemble and as such create a new urban quality in this location.