The new building for the Berlin campus of the German publishing group Axel Springer, designed by OMA, acts as a symbol and tool in the transition of a movement from print to digital media.

The new Axel Springer building in Berlin was officially opened the morning of October 6th during a ceremonial opening with inaugural speeches by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, architect Rem Koolhaas and Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner.

Exactly four years after the start of construction, the new cube-shaped building is the latest addition to the Axel-Springer Campus, the ensemble of different premises at the media and technology company's headquarters.   
 
“Paradoxically, the current pandemic and concurrent digital acceleration, demonstrate the need for spaces conceived for human beings to interact. In the typical office building, a visitor enters, and then disappears.. It is far from clear what happens inside. In the new Axel Springer building, people and their interaction, are the essence.

The Springer building is a tool for the further development of a company in perpetual motion. It offers its users a physical base – a wide variety of spatial conditions, intimate to monumental – in contrast to the flatness of working in virtual space.”
Rem Koolhaas, architect and founder of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA).
The essence of OMA's design is a series of terraced floors that together form a 'valley' that creates an informal setting in the center, a place to convey ideas to other parts of the company. Divided by a diagonal atrium that opens onto the existing Axel Springer buildings, the common space formed by the interconnected terraces offers an alternative to the formal office space in the solid part of the building, resulting in a building that generously conveys the work of people for shared analysis.

The new Axel Springer building offers 52,000 square meters of work space for more than 3,000 employees and is characterized by its open, transparent architecture. Straddling the former border, the 45-meter high, light-flooded atrium divides the building into sections in a perpetual encounter with each other across the space. In the space between, the terraced ten stories and 13 bridges create connections between the sections and provide inspiration for physical encounters in the digital age. 
 
“We wanted the new building to be a symbol and an accelerator of our own transformation. Long before the coronavirus, the mission was to find a new answer to the question of why office space is still needed at all in the digital age. Rem Koolhaas has provided a spectacular reply.

Open, multifunction spaces that enable maximum flexibility of use. Avant-garde architecture as a magnet for encounters and communication. The building as a powerhouse of creativity.” 
Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer SE
 

Description of project by OMA

Axel Springer has launched a move from print to digital media. Its new building on the campus in Berlin acts both as a symbol and a tool in this transition - a building to lure the elite of (Germany’s) digital Bohemia. Bisected by a diagonal atrium that opens up to the existing Axel Springer buildings, the essence of the design is a series of terraced floors that together form a ‘valley’ that creates an informal stage at the centre - a place to broadcast ideas to other parts of the company.

The genius of print is that it is a cheap, physical, hyper-accessible embodiment of a complex collective effort, for which so far the digital has been unable to find an equivalent. Architectural offices are similar to newspapers in that they produce complex assemblies and selections from radically different sources of information.

As architects, we have experienced the advantages: speed, precision, smoothness. But we have also suffered one crucial consequence: the relationship between the worker and his computer, which isolates him in a bubble of introverted performance, inaccessible to collective overview.

In the classical newsroom, dominated by smoking, typing journalists, each inhabitant was aware of the labour and progress of his colleagues and of the collective aim: a single issue, with the deadline as a simultaneous release. In the digital office, staring intently at a screen dampens all other forms of attention and therefore undermines the collective intelligence necessary for true innovation.

We therefore have designed a building that lavishly broadcasts the work of individuals for shared analysis. The new office block is injected with a central atrium that opens up to the existing Axel Springer buildings - a new centre of the Axel Springer campus.

The design was developed around a series of terraced floors that together form a digital valley. Each floor contains a covered part as a traditional work environment, which is then uncovered on the terraces. Halfway through the building, the valley is mirrored to generate a three dimensional canopy.

The common space formed by the interconnected terraces offers an alternative to the formal office space in the solid part of the building, allowing for an unprecedented expansion of the vocabulary of workspaces: a building that can absorb all the question marks of the digital future.

The public can experience the building on three levels - ground floor lobby, meeting bridge, and roof-top bar. The meeting bridge is a viewing platform from which the visitors can witness the daily functioning of the company and how it evolves. The ground floor contains studios, event and exhibition spaces, canteens and restaurants.

The building is situated opposite the existing Axel Springer headquarters on Zimmerstrasse, a street which previously separated East and West Berlin, at one of the city’s most significant locations.

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Architects
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OMA. Partner.- Chris van Duijn, Rem Koolhaas. Associate in charge.- Katrin Betschinger.

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Project team
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Wael Sleiman, Valentin Bansac, Matthieu Boustany, Saida Bruckner, Felix Buttner, Emile Estourgie, Michalis Hadjistyllis, Phelan Heinsohn, Cindy Hwang, Mattia Inselvini, Athanasios Ikonomou, Hanna Jankowska, Minkoo Kang, Alexander Klufers, Tijmen Klone, Marina Kouvani, Maximilian Kurten, Hans Larsson, Wai Yiu Man, Cristina Martin de Juan, Julian Meisen, Martin Murrenhoff, Betty Ng, Edward Nicholson, Vitor Manuel Dos Santos Oliveira, Ebrahim Olia, Jerome Picard, Danny Rigter, Joanna Rozbroj, Stefanos Roimpas, Jad Semaan, Lukasz Skalec, Sandra Sinka, Thomas Shadbolt, Magdalena Stanescu, Mike Yin, Marcus Parviainen, Slavis Poczebutas, Alexandru Vilcu, Frederike Werner, Mateusz Wojcieszek.

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Collaborators
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Project Management.- SMV Bauprojektsteuerung Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH. Cost Management.- Emproc GmbH. MEP.- ZWP Ingenieur-AG. Façade.- Emmer Pfenninger Partner AG. Landscape.- Inside Outside. Structure.- Arup London. Elevators.- Lerch & Bates. Energy/Comfort.- Transsolar Energietechnik GmbH. Building Physics.- knp.Bauphysik GmbH. Acoustics.- Kahle Acoustics. Geotechnical.- GuD Geotechnik und Dynamik Consult GmbH. Lighting.- les éclaireurs. Orientation System.- Büro Uebele. Curtain design.- Inside Outside.

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Subconsultants
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Competition: Structure, MEP, Façade, Sustainability.- Arup London. Microclimate.- RWDI. Acoustics.- Kahle Acoustics. Cost.- ARGE SMV Bauprojektsteuerung & Emproc GmbH. Fire & Life Safety.- Peter Stanek. Renderings.- OMA, Robota. Model Photographs.- Frans Parthesius.

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Client
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Builder
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Main contractor.- Ed. Züblin AG. Façade contractor.- Dobler-Metallbau, GIG Fassaden.

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Area
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Plot Area.- 9 260 m². Total.- 57 828 m² (above ground); 14 731 m² (below ground). Offices.- 43,534 m², public areas (lobbies, restaurants, event spaces and meeting facilities).- 8,200 m², technical areas.- 6,686 m²; parking.- 11 300 m².

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Data set
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Floors.- 11 + 2 underground floors. Height.- 48 m. Maximum Atrium height.- 42 m.

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Dates
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Competition.- 2013-2014. Design Commission.- 2014. Breaking Ground.- 2016. Completion.- 2019.

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Manufacturers
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Furniture.- Unifor, Lensvelt.

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Location
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Zimmerstraße 50, Berlin, Germany.

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Photography
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Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is an international practice operating within the traditional boundaries of architecture and urbanism. AMO, a research and design studio, applies architectural thinking to domains beyond. OMA is led by eight partners – Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf, Ellen van Loon, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, Chris van Duijn, Jason Long, and Managing Partner-Architect David Gianotten – and maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, Doha, and Australia. OMA-designed buildings currently under construction are the renovation of Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) in Berlin, The Factory in Manchester, Hangzhou Prism, the CMG Times Center in Shenzhen and the Simone Veil Bridge in Bordeaux.

OMA’s completed projects include Taipei Performing Arts Centre (2022), Audrey Irmas Pavilion in Los Angeles (2020), Norra Tornen in Stockholm (2020), Axel Springer Campus in Berlin (2020), MEETT Toulouse Exhibition and Convention Centre (2020), Galleria in Gwanggyo (2020), WA Museum Boola Bardip (2020), nhow RAI Hotel in Amsterdam (2020), a new building for Brighton College (2020), and Potato Head Studios in Bali (2020). Earlier buildings include Fondazione Prada in Milan (2018), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow (2015), De Rotterdam (2013), CCTV Headquarters in Beijing (2012), Casa da Música in Porto (2005), and the Seattle Central Library (2004).

AMO often works in parallel with OMA's clients to fertilize architecture with intelligence from this array of disciplines. This is the case with Prada: AMO's research into identity, in-store technology, and new possibilities of content-production in fashion helped generate OMA's architectural designs for new Prada epicenter stores in New York and Los Angeles. In 2004, AMO was commissioned by the European Union to study its visual communication, and designed a colored "barcode" flag, combining the flags of all member states, which was used during the Austrian presidency of the EU. AMO has worked with Universal Studios, Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, Heineken, Ikea, Condé Nast, Harvard University and the Hermitage. It has produced Countryside: The Future, a research exhibited at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; exhibitions at the Venice Architecture Biennale, including Public Works (2012), Cronocaos (2010), and The Gulf (2006); and for Fondazione Prada, including When Attitudes Become Form (2012) and Serial and Portable Classics (2015). AMO, with Harvard University, was responsible for the research and curation of the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale and its publication Elements. Other notable projects are Roadmap 2050, a plan for a Europe-wide renewable energy grid; Project Japan, a 720-page book on the Metabolism architecture movement (Taschen, 2010); and the educational program of Strelka Institute in Moscow.

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Rem Koolhaas was born in Rotterdam in 1944. He began his career as a journalist, working for the Haagse Post, and as a set-designer in the Netherlands and Hollywood. He beganHe frequented the Architectural Association School in London and studied with Oswald Mathias Ungers at Cornell University. In 1978, he wrote Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan, which has become a classic of contemporary architectural theory. In 1975 – together with Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp – he founded OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture).

The most important works by Koolhaas and OMA, from its foundation until the mid-1990s, include the Netherlands Dance Theatre at The Hague, the Nexus Housing at Fukuoka in Japan, the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, the Grand Palais of Euralille and Lille, the Villa dall’Ava, the Très Grande Bibliothèque, the Jussieu library in Paris, the ZKM in Karlsruhe and the Seattle Public Library.

Together with Koolhaas’s reflections on contemporary society, these buildings appear in his second book, S,M,L,XL (1995), a volume of 1376 pages written as though it were a “novel about architecture”. Published in collaboration with the Canadian graphic designer, Bruce Mau, the book contains essays, manifestos, cartoons and travel diaries.

In 2005, with Mark Wigley and Ole Bouman, he was the founder to the prestigious Volume magazine, the result of a collaboration with Archis (Amsterdam), AMO and C-lab (Columbia University NY).

His built work includes the Qatar National Library and the Qatar Foundation Headquarters (2018), Fondation Galeries Lafayette in Paris (2018), Fondazione Prada in Milan (2015/2018), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow (2015), the headquarters for China Central Television (CCTV) in Beijing (2012), Casa da Musica in Porto (2005), Seattle Central Library (2004), and the Netherlands Embassy in Berlin (2003). Current projects include the Taipei Performing Arts Centre, a new building for Axel Springer in Berlin, and the Factory in Manchester.

Koolhaas directed the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale and is a professor at Harvard University, where he directs The Project on the City, a research programme on changes in urban conditions around the world. This programme has conducted research on the delta of the Pearl River in China (entitled Great Leap Forward) and on consumer society (The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping). Taschen Verlag has published the results. Now is preparing a major exhibition for the Guggenheim museum to open in 2019 entitled Countryside: Future of the World.

Among the awards he has won in recent years, we mention here the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize (2000), the Praemium Imperiale (2003), the Royal Gold Medal (2004) and the Mies Van Der Rohe prize (2005). In 2008, Time mentioned him among the 100 most influential people of the planet.

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Chris van Duijn joined OMA in 2000 and is based in Rotterdam. He has been involved in many of OMA’s most renowned projects including Universal Studios in Los Angeles, the Prada stores in New York and Los Angeles (2001), Casa da Musica in Porto (2005) and the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing (2012). Recently completed projects include Fondazione Prada in Milan (2015) and the Garage Museum of Contemporary in Moscow (2015).

In addition to large-scale and complex projects, he has worked on interiors and small-scale projects including private houses, product design, and temporary structures such as the Prada Transformer in Seoul (2009).

Currently he is overseeing the design of the Axel Springer Campus in Berlin and the Jean Jacques Bosc Bridge in Bordeaux, the construction of the Parc des Expositions in Toulouse and the Bibliothèque Multimédia à Vocation Régionale in Caen, as well as product development projects.

Chris holds a Master of Architecture from the Technical University of Delft.
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Ellen van Loon (Rotterdam, 1963) joined OMA in 1998 and became Partner in 2002. She has led award-winning building projects that combine sophisticated design with precise execution. Recently completed projects led by Ellen include the shop-in-shops for Jacquemus at Galeries Lafayette and Selfridges (2022), the temporary showroom in Doha and store on Avenue de Montaigne in Paris for Tiffany & Co. (2022-23), Monumental Wonders exhibition for SolidNature in Milan (2022). Bvlgari Fine Jewelry Show (2021), Brighton College (2020), BLOX / DAC in Copenhagen (2018), Rijnstraat 8 in The Hague (2017), and Lab City CentraleSupélec (2017). Other projects in her portfolio include Fondation Galeries Lafayette (2018) in Paris; Qatar National Library (2017); Amsterdam’s G-Star Raw Headquarters (2014); De Rotterdam, the largest building in the Netherlands (2013); CCTV Headquarters in Beijing (2012); New Court Rothschild Bank in London (2011); Maggie’s Centre in Glasgow (2011); Casa da Musica in Porto (2005) – winner of the 2007 RIBA Award; and the Dutch Embassy in Berlin (2003) – winner of the European Union Mies van der Rohe Award in 2005. Ellen is currently working on The Factory Manchester – a large performing arts venue for the city; the renovation of Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) Berlin – Europe’s biggest department store – and the design of Lamarr, a new department store in Vienna; and the Palais de Justice de Lille.

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