Kyffhäuser Visitor Center

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Merging landscape
and building

Year: First prize in competition 2020, expected completion 2026

Client: Kyffhäuser-Stiftung

Program: Visitor center by historical monument, including arrival area, urban spaces, and parking

Size: 890 m² visitor center, 5,000 m² landscape

Located in the Kyffhäuser Mountains in eastern Germany, the Kyffhäuser Monument attracts more than 200,000 visitors annually. It is a historically invaluable site that combines 10th century castle ruins with impressive tributes to the Emperor’s Wilhelm I and Frederick Barbarossa. The visitor center will mark the entrance to the Kyffhäuser monument and the region. Placed in a small valley just in front of the monument, the project’s discrete design merges with the surrounding landscape. With a modular and locally sourced mass timber construction, a warm and natural materiality complements the expression of the local sandstone known from the area and provides a flexible framework - easily adaptable for its many functional needs. Here, visitors can explore exhibitions devoted to the history of the ruins and monument, attend events, or walk along the terraced staircase surrounding the building while enjoying the uninterrupted views of the mountains, the castle ruin and the monument.

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The Kyffhäuser Monument is one of the most important monuments in Germany, located in the Kyffhäuser Mountains, and built in honour of Kaiser Wilhelm I and in memory of the unification of the German Empire in 1871.

Located in a small valley just in front of the Kyffhäuser Monument, the new visitor center will mark the entrance to the monument and region. It respects the heritage of the landscape and yet is bold and contemporary in its expression.

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A new portal

The visitor center serves as an entrance to the Kyffhäuser monument, providing a welcoming and open impression upon arrival.

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Visual relation

The visitor center’s curved form provides a generous and unobstructed view towards the Kyffhäuser monument and the landscape, allowing for a key visual dialogue.

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Merging landscape and building

The building merges together with the undulating landscape of the nature reserve.

An entrance to
a monument and
a region
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Arriving at the visitor center, you will see the Kyffhäuser Monument at the top of the mountain.

As a new entrance building to the monument and region, the Kyffhäuser Visitor Center preserves the existing sight lines to the monument and creates new and direct visual connections with the monument. The building’s upward sloping roof gently directs views toward the monument and the surrounding middle-ground hilly landscape.

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The platform and staircase merge with the adjacent topography, making the building accessible from all sides and enhancing the experience of being in the landscape.

The visitor center naturally adapts to the surrounding dramatic topography and landscape, as a terraced building where each individual level merges together with the adjacent sloping terrain. A spacious platform and staircase around the building offers a place to gather and absorb the surroundings.

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17 cobe kyffhauser visitor center diagram
A mass timber
construction
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The visitor center is made of a pre-fabricated mass timber construction, with a transparent and light-flooded facade. Using a natural, robust, and renewable building material, the building reflects the nature reserve’s qualities.

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The timber construction consists of a long-span roof cantilever beams to ensure high flexibility in programming of the interior spaces and meeting changing needs over time. Constructed with design for disassembly principles, the mass timber elements can easily be disassembled, recycled or replaced.

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Modular and flexible
structure supporting
functionality
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The roof cantilever is a natural protection against weather, rain and snow. It also creates an intimate and defined outdoor space for visitors.

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The timber structure consists of angled columns, creating stability for the roof cantilever. The transparency of the facade allows the landscape to extend into the building, where floor-to-ceiling windows frame the surroundings and flood the interior with daylight.

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The entrance and exhibition areas flow directly into the outdoor space, merging landscape and building.

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At the northern end of the visitor center, one of the exhibition spaces opens up to a spacious double height room, offering a far-reaching view of the forested landscape.

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The interior functions are defined by both daylight requirements and flexibility. Solar panels are placed on the roof, generating enough electricity to support the operation of the building.

The interior spaces include an open and welcoming reception area with ticket sales and information, a multimedia room, as well as multi-functional spaces for events and exhibitions, spread across various levels. All spaces have direct access to the outdoor wooden platforms and the surrounding landscape, making the building accessible from all sides.

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The center rewards its visitors with remarkable and highly calibrated views and a direct access to the historic landscape and the Kyffhäuser monument, while offering an innovative building easily adaptable due to its modular timber construction.

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Location: Thüringen, Germany

Client: Kyffhäuser-Stiftung

Program: Visitor center by historical monument, including arrival area, urban spaces, and parking

Size: 890 m² visitor center, 5,000 m² landscape

Year: First prize in competition 2020, expected completion 2026

Collaborators: Arge Göhring Satzer, IB.EPM, EVT Sonderhausen, bv partnerschaft

Team: Adam Björk, Aleksandra Warowna, Caroline Nagel, Casper Borg, Dan Stubbergaard, Elmira Parvizi, Emilie Van Daele, Francisco Tirado, Huiru Huang, Maria Aufegger, Marianne Filtenborg, Max Neumeister.