O&O: NRW State Archive

In Duisburg O&O Baukunst completed the Germany’s largest archive building, augmenting the existing warehouses from the 1930s by a 76 metre-high house-shaped tower at the centre.

Towards the motorway and the inland port, the NRW State Archive presents itself as a prominent brick building.

O&O Baukunst Landesarchiv NRW — O&O Baukunst, Landesarchiv NRW, Duisburg, Germany

An archive tower, with no window is added at the center of the existing warehouse from the 1930s. The archive material, previously distributed in a number of different locations, can now be brought together and can be made visible in built terms as society’s memory.

The façade openings and the skylights of the existing warehouse are closed up and the clinker brick façade is cleaned. The new storage tower is distinguished from the old brick structure by the use of a fine relief; the edges and surfaces are softer, less easily grasped by the eye. The five-storey addition that meanders along the inland port houses the foyer and administration, as well as a number of other functions.