Located relatively close to the center of Berlin, faced the museum island, on the banks of the River Spree stands the embassy of the Netherlands, designed by the architecture studio OMA, a project led by the architects Rem Koolhaas and Ellen van Loon. After the War and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the realization of this new project was a pending and important step for Germany. In 1997 the architects won the competition for the construction of the embassy, whose construction lasted until 2003.

The architects had to confront the required planning guidelines, in some cases contradictory, as on the one hand there were the traditional guidelines of West Berlin, which demanded that the new buildings reflect the local style of the 19th century, while on the other hand East Berlin area was more open to innovation.
Following the guidelines required by West Berlin and East Berlin, OMA projects a building in which the two parts are mixed in two volumes. On the one hand, we have the main volume of the offices that is described as a cube 27 meters high, this cube is surrounded by another volume of the same height that describes an irregular shape in which the residences of the embassy are located.

In the space between the two volumes, a protected interior patio is created, the two parts of the building are connected through 4 pedestrian bridges that are located on different floors of the complex. With a total area of ​​8,500sqm, its program divides 4,800sqm for offices, 1,500sqm for residential use and 2,200sqm for parking.

Inside the building, the 200m path that connects the 8 floors of the building stands out, at the same time that it organizes the layout of its spaces since upon entering the building the path surrounds the offices and directs us to the library and rooms. of meetings, he leads us through the entire building until we reach the restaurant located on the roof.

This path that leads us like a parasite inside the building is also noticeable on the outside, since in the areas where the path passes through the facade of the building, large windows open to the outside that stand out from the regularity of the main cube, and they offer us magnificent views of the river Spree.

The building is born from the perfect mix between the traditional and the innovation, creating an regular space on the outside, on which the different irregular elements that make up the interior stand out.
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Architects
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OMA. Architects.- Rem Koolhaas, Ellen van Loon. 

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Project team
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Project director.- Erik Schotte. Project architect.- Gro Bonesmo, Michelle Howard, Erik Schotte. Project team.- Stan Aarts, Mette Bos, Robert Choeff, Paolo Costa, Anne Filson, Adrianne Fisher, Bruce Fisher, Udo Garritzmann, Marc Guinand, Annick Hess, Matthias Hollwich, Jenny Jones, Thomas Kolbasenko, Adam Kurdahl, Antti Lassila, Anu Leinonen, Nils Lindhorst, Rombout Loman, Susanne Manthey, Beth Margulis, Christian Müller, Daan Ooievaar, Bill Price, Tammo Prinz, Shadi Rahbaran, Fernando Romero, Christiane Sauer, Oliver Schütte, Julien De Smedt, Felix Thoma, Katrin Thorhauer, Carolus Traenkner, Moritz von Voss, Barbara Wolff.

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Collaborators
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Project management.- Royal HaskoningDHV.  Structure.- Royal HaskoningDHV, Arup, Berlin. Services.- Huygen Elwako, Arup, Berlin. Fire safety.- Hosser Hass + Partner. Lighting.- OVI.  Curtains.- Inside Outside.

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Area
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Total area.- 8,500sqm. Office.- 4,800sqm. Parking.- 2,200sqm. Residential.- 1,500sqm.

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Dates
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Comission.- 1997. Breaking ground.- 2000. Completion.-2003.

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Location
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Klosterstraße 50, 10179 Berlin, Germany.

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Photography
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Christian Richters, Iwan Baan, Phill Meedz, Hans Werlemann, Hans Feldman, Rick Jack.

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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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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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