OMA-Designed Axel Springer Building opens in Berlin

The new Axel Springer building in Berlin was officially opened this morning during a ceremonial opening with inaugural speeches by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, architect Rem Koolhaas and Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner. Exactly four years after the start of construction, the new cube-shaped building is the latest addition to the Axel-Springer Campus, the ensemble of different premises at the media and technology company's headquarters...

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

Architect: OMA
Client: Axel Springer SE
Location: Berlin, Germany
Year: 2020
Partners in charge: Rem Koolhaas, Chris van Duijn
Associate in charge: Katrin Betschinger
Team: Philippe Braun, Antonio Barone, Paolo Caracini,Alain Fouraux, Gary Owen, Maria Aller Rey, Wael Sleiman Valentin Bansac, Matthieu Boustany, Saida Bruckner, Felix Buttner, Emile Estourgie, Michalis Hadjistyllis Phelan Heinsohn, Cindy Hwang, Mattia Inselvini, Athanasios Ikonomou, Hanna Jankowska, Minkoo Kang Alexander Klufers, Tijmen Klone, Marina Kouvani, Maximilian Kurten, Hans Larsson, Wai Yiu Man, Cristina Martin de Juan, Julian Meisen, Martin Murrenhoff, Betty Ng, Edward Nicholson, Vitor Manuel Dos Santos Oliveira, Ebrahim Olia Jerome Picard, Danny Rigter, Joanna Rozbroj, Stefanos Roimpas, Jad Semaan, Lukasz Skalec, Sandra Sinka Thomas Shadbolt, Magdalena Stanescu, Mike Yin, Marcus Parviainen, Slavis Poczebutas, Alexandru Vilcu, Frederike Werner, Mateusz Wojcieszek

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer SE: “We wanted the new building to be a symbol and an accelerator of our own transformation. Long before the coronavirus, the mission was to find a new answer to the question of why office space is still needed at all in the digital age. Rem Koolhaas has provided a spectacular reply. Open, multifunction spaces that enable maximum flexibility of use. Avant-garde architecture as a magnet for encounters and communication. The building as a powerhouse of creativity.” 

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

Rem Koolhaas, architect and founder of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA): “Paradoxically, the current pandemic and concurrent digital acceleration, demonstrate the need for spaces conceived for human beings to interact. In the typical office building, a visitor enters, and then disappears.. It is far from clear what happens inside. In the new Axel Springer building, people and their interaction, are the essence. The Springer building is a tool for the further development of a company in perpetual motion. It offers its users a physical base – a wide variety of spatial conditions, intimate to monumental – in contrast to the flatness of working in virtual space.”

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Frank-Walter Steinmeier, President of the Federal Republic of Germany: “Axel Springer signed a bond for the future with the development of its publishing house. It paid off, thirty years ago when our country was reunited, just as it does today. But it seems to me that this new house, too, does not only interpret the times in which we live. It wants to stand for the future. This house also wants to be a symbol. A symbol of the radical transformation of a publishing house into a media company, a response to the demands and challenges of digitization.”

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

The new Axel Springer building offers 52,000 square meters of work space for more than 3,000 employees and is characterized by its open, transparent architecture. Straddling the former border, the 45-meter high, light-flooded atrium divides the building into sections in a perpetual encounter with each other across the space. In the space between, the terraced ten stories and 13 bridges create connections between the sections and provide inspiration for physical encounters in the digital age. 

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

The new occupants have now almost all moved in and the first units have been working there since early 2020. The tenants include the shopping and comparison platform idealo, the editorial offices of WELT Print and WELT Digital, WELT TV, Media Impact and various central departments of Axel Springer. In spite of restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic, the building was completed on time and on budget.

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

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