A New Generation of High-Tech Temples

Hüttinger Elektronik, a model enterprise based in Freiburg, now occupies a factory where everything is close at hand

It was only recently that architects began to address the challenge of adapting workplaces to employees’ needs in design terms.

One of the pioneers was Günther Behnisch, who abolished the distinction between blue collar and white collar jobs in 1988 at his production facility and administrative building for the mechanical engineering firm Leybold in Alzenau, offering all staff the same working conditions, social areas and leisure facilities. There was hardly any difference between the ambience in the spaces used for the clean, low-noise production processes characterised by their meticulous logistical organisation and that in the rooms assigned to development and administrative activities. After all, the employees in both parts of the business were just as highly qualified and demanding.

Desire for architectural quality

The emergence of these ambitions has been accompanied by a desire among the companies commissioning new buildings for innovative, high-quality industrial architecture that will complement their corporate identities. Structures like Christoph Ingenhoven’s attractive plant for the designer light switch manufacturer Gira in Radevormwald, Rimowa’s Cologne metal suitcase factory by Gatermann Schossig and Thomas Herzog’s ecological factory for Wilkhahn in Bad Gmünder are extremely interesting aesthetically and are often depicted in their owners’ advertising.

The complete article could be found at:

http://www.goethe.de/kue/arc/thm/en1867551.htm