Multimedia group Axel Springer announced that OMA, is the winner in the competition to design its new Media Center headquarters in Berlin.

Axel Springer's architectural competition has been concluded: the architectural office OMA shall develop the details of a project which can be granted planning permission in coordination with the building principal and the relevant authorities. In a final consultative meeting on Tuesday, 25 March 2014, the jury, consisting of field experts and representatives of Berlin’s administration as well as of Axel Springer unanimously recommended the concept submitted by Rem Koolhaas’ firm. The concept prevailed against the two further winning concepts by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) und Buro Ole Scheeren.

The task of the competition, which was announced in May 2013, was to develop ideas to create additional space for Axel Springer's growing business divisions, and in particular its digital offers. In addition, the planned building structure should set new standards in terms of architectural atmosphere, usage and room conception, reflecting a modern working environment. 18 German and international architects' offices took part in the competition.

The operative part of the competition ended on 12 December 2013 and was won by the three architects' offices Bjarke Ingels Group, Buro Ole Scheeren and OMA. In the subsequent weeks the winning entries were primarily examined in terms of the planned building’s general acceptability and feasibility. A contract will be issued once it has been decided whether and when the construction project can be implemented.

The central component of the winning entry by Rem Koolhaas is the large atrium, which, at 30 meters of height, faces the existing Axel Springer building. Interconnected terraces and public workspaces create an environment, which enables both individual and collaborative work.

With its allusion of an “open valley”, the concept addresses the question of how offices can accommodate mobile work environments.

Prof. Dr. Friedrich von Borries, president of the jury: “There is a high symbolic value in good architecture. Good architecture influences its surroundings. But also apart from this aspect the competition for the new Axel-Springer-Campus also raised the question of how we want to work in the future. The concept submitted by Rem Koolhaas offered a spectacular answer to this, which opens up a completely new working and communication landscape to its future users.”

Regula Lüscher Senate Building Director at Berlin's Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment: “Rem Koolhaas drafted a building which only on second sight reveals its secret, architecturally formulating a new kind of collaborative working at its core. The concept offers a strong symbolic force as it leads the course of the Berlin Wall diagonally through the building, thereby creating an atrium and spectacular interior, which addresses the unification of this city. Thus, Axel Springer continues its own architectural history in this location.”

Dr. Mathias Döpfner, Chief Executive Officer of Axel Springer SE: “We are very happy to be able to build the new building of our publishing house together with Rem Koolhaas. He presented the conceptually and esthetically most radical model. The fundamental innovation of working environments will support the cultural transformation towards a digital publishing house. At the same time, I thank Ole Scheeren and Bjarke Ingels for their excellent concepts which also offered creative and passionate answers to our requirements.”

Rem Koolhaas: “It is a wonderful occasion to build in Berlin again, on this historical site of all places, for a client who has mobilized architecture to help perform a radical change…a workplace in all its dimensions.”

Axel Springer is planning to display the submissions from all the participants in the competition in the German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt am Main. The public was already given an opportunity to view the 18 models and to critically examine the ideas for the planned new building in the German Architecture Center (DAZ) in Berlin in December 2013.

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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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