Library and City Archive Nienburg

We find a place in the heart of the city that had all the opportunities, whose quality was gambled away in the 1960s and is still an architectural no-man’s-land even today. What is being discussed is an existing, unidentified building without any reference to history or the surrounding urban landscape - emotionally a case for total demolition. The place to be redesigned must therefore be an antithesis: sensitive to the spatial and historical context and at the same time a metaphor and meeting place for education and culture. The historical traces of the parcelling out of the site and the way through must not be lost. Neighbouring architectural formal languages must be taken up and developed further in the building. Respect for the qualities of the surroundings is the necessary starting point, but not the end point for the design of an authentic building. Of course, the future building should adopt the type and materials of the surrounding buildings. The stele frames present in the façade formally quote the clear order of the Lower Saxon half-timbered structure as well as the vertical, narrow rhythm of the opposite town hall from the Weser Renaissance era.