New building takes shape - topping-out ceremony for the storage depot of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin-Friedrichshagen
Press release from 01/28/2010
Today, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is celebrating the topping-out ceremony for the first construction phase of the Foundation's new storage depot in Berlin-Friedrichshagen in the presence of Rainer Bomba, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Construction and Ingeborg Berggreen-Merkel, Ministerial Director at the BKM (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media). With 21,200 square metres of floor space, it will house the collections of the Berlin State Library, the Ibero-American Institute and the bpk - Picture Agency for Art, Culture and History. The building will be handed over to the users at the end of 2011, and operations will begin in 2012.
Ingeborg Berggreen-Merkel said: "The construction measures of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation financed by the federal government will make it possible to significantly improve the spatial situation at the two library locations Unter den Linden and Potsdamer Straße, for the Ibero-American Institute and for the Picture Archive of the Prussian Cultural Heritage (bpk) located on Märkisches Ufer in the foreseeable future with the new storage building of the State Library. In the future, Friedrichshagen will house part of the memory of the State Library and other institutions of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. In addition, construction of the depots for the National Museums in Berlin is expected to begin in 2011."
"By relocating space-intensive collections that are not in daily demand to the new storage depot, we will be able to significantly relieve the pressure on the main city centre locations of our institutions. We have expansion possibilities here in Friedrichshagen that do not exist there," said Hermann Parzinger, President of the Foundation. "I am delighted that the construction is on budget and on schedule."
In line with the long-term planning, the storage depot will be built in three phases. The first section of the four-storey building with external dimensions of 126 and 68 metres will provide space for around 6 million volumes. The construction costs are estimated at around 84.7 million euros. A second and third section will double the space and storage capacity of the repository by 2060.
The holdings stored here will continue to be available to the public without restriction, with requested documents being lorried to the central locations of the three institutions for loan on a daily basis. In addition, more and more materials will be available in electronic form. A scanning station equipped with the latest technical devices is therefore an essential part of the building.
The architect Eberhard Wimmer (Munich) designed the building as a reinforced concrete structure with a green flat roof and a façade made of prefabricated concrete elements and natural stone elements. He interprets the storage depot as a kind of treasure house for the valuable holdings and has therefore added a protruding "closure stone" to the entrance area, which also houses archive and function rooms. Behind this is a central hall that will allow direct access to the various functional areas on all levels. The storage areas are laid out as four identical modules next to each other. Inside each of them is a glass-roofed atrium around which the employees' workstations are arranged.
The storage depot is a highly technical building specially designed for the storage of cultural artefacts. To protect the books, magazines and photos to be stored, it will be equipped with an appropriately designed air conditioning system. There will also be a separate room for microfilms, cooled to 2 degrees Celsius. In addition to the scanning station and the book conveyor system, the stacks will be equipped with space-saving, electrically operated mobile shelving. The technical equipment will be housed on the roof.
Over the next few years, a new building for the depots and workshops of the National Museums in Berlin will also be erected in the immediate neighbourhood. The first section of this building, which is also planned in modules, should be available from around 2015. Over the next few years, the so-called "Friedrichshagen Warehouse City" will be built step by step.
Note:
Background information on the website of the Berlin State Library
Image material on the website of the Berlin State Library and on the website of the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning