In a downtown,
mixed-use area at the foot of the Abteiberg in the city of Mönchengladbach stands a transparent corporate administration building with
unusual work and leisure qualities. This is where the Santander Central
Hispano, Spain’s largest bank, has erected its German headquarters on a former
industrial area. Since the end of 2006, the facility has provided office space
for the 1,400 employees who were consolidated at this location from different
branch offices.
From the very start, the well-being of the employees was the central concern
informing the architectural design. With the new building, the bank wanted to
create the appropriate conditions for realizing the process of change it calls the New Work project, a work concept based on the results of the “Office 21”
study conducted by the Fraunhofer Institute. “Office 21” asserts that in an
increasingly automated and networked professional world, creativity becomes the
new raw material of society. The motivation of Santander’s employees to find new
solutions to the challenges they face in their work and to share these with
others thus becomes the basis for the bank’s continued and future success.
Given this conceptual backdrop, the goal of the architectural competition for
the building’s design was to find and develop innovation-promoting modes of
work, as well as economical and flexible spatial concepts, that would support
the internal flow of information. As a result, the final design idea was
focused on
the internal organization of a team-oriented, communication-based work
environment. The building site’s geographical proximity to the Rhine River
influenced the basic concept of designing a building that “flowed into” the
city landscape. In addition, openness, transparency, and flexibility were to be
designed to facilitate the work processes of the building’s users as much as
possible and to promote the exchange of information.
The ultimate result of these basic ideas is a meandering glass building divided
into sections along its length by four glass atria. From an urban development
standpoint, the new building consolidates the formerly commercial use of the
grounds and, with its varying height, mediates between the different heights of
the surrounding structures and the grounds themselves. The open, green-surfaced
courtyards and the setbacks from the building line generate a stimulating
street layout, which breaks up and expands the road space.
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