Million-dollar new building for the Bremen State Archives: Now it starts!

Million-dollar new building for the Bremen State Archives: Now it starts!

A lot is happening in Bremen: The new state archive, which is considered one of the city's most important cultural projects, is finally taking on more concrete form. The cultural deputation has decided on the final financing for the million-dollar project, which is now entering the next phase with an estimated cost of 14.5 million euros. Originally only 8.7 million euros were budgeted for the plans, but the need for more extensive expansion quickly became clear. Mayor Andreas Bovenschulte (SPD) promised that construction should begin as quickly as possible after there have already been several delays tagesschau.de reported.

Particularly pleasing: The federal government has approved a grant of almost 4.1 million euros, which is tied to the condition that the entire project is completed by the end of 2025. The deadline for the grant was recently extended, which provides some relief. Before the construction work can actually start, the Budget and Finance Committee must approve what could be the last step before the large-scale construction project next week, reports kreiszeitung.de.

A home for Bremen's history

The future archive magazine will be built directly at the main location on the ramparts and is intended to help eliminate the current bottleneck in the existing archives. The Bremen State Archives is currently using a converted air raid shelter as an additional storage location, which is known to have led to logistical difficulties. The new building is scheduled to open by the end of 2028, which is sure to arouse a lot of anticipation in the city.

With an archive that holds documents spanning over ten centuries, it is time for a much-needed expansion. The construction will be started behind the existing magazine tower of the state archives. The archive was moved into its current building on President-Kennedy-Platz in 1968, which is considered an exemplary building of post-war modernism and is a listed building. Originally, the plans consisted of an eight-story storage tower and a two-story atrium building, which has since made it difficult to find an appropriate solution for the growing archive collection, such as bpw-stadtplanning.de confirmed.

Planning with foresight

There are exciting times ahead for the Bremen State Archives: planning and citizen participation began in 2021. No fewer than 100 applications were submitted for funding for the new magazine, of which only 24 were approved. In order to meet the requirements of the city and its citizens, a citizen participation process was carried out. A Europe-wide competition to realize the new building attracted almost 40 architectural firms, twelve of which were accepted to take part. Under the direction of Prof. Volker Staab, the four best designs were selected, with the Bruno Fioretti Marquez office from Berlin winning first prize.

The structural implementation is planned for the second quarter of 2024. This will soon make visible progress, and the new room for Bremen's valuable documents will be just in time to preserve the history of the Hanseatic city for future generations. The exhibition of the competition results took place in the foyer of the State Archives from August to the end of October 2022 and was a real crowd puller.