From Salt Factory to Art Museum: The Story Behind the Schaudepot in Essen, Germany

Once the largest coal mine in Europe, the Zollverein complex in Essen, Germany, has undergone a remarkable transformation over the past twenty-five years. What was once a landscape of abandoned industrial facilities is now a laboratory of contemporary architecture, featuring works by Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster, and SANAA. Their interventions bridge the site’s industrial past with its imagined future. Spanning 100 hectares, the UNESCO World Heritage site has become a global model of adaptive reuse, redefining what it means to preserve industrial heritage. Within this context stands the Ruhr Museum and its enigmatic art repository, the Schaudepot. Located in the complex’s former salt factory, the museum impresses not only with its collection but also with its architecture, which transforms a 1960s industrial building into a vibrant cultural venue.

Located northwest of Seattle on the Kitsap Peninsula, a few blocks up from a small beach town, this residence takes its place on a cherished piece of family property. On a secluded wooded site, the new structure grounds itself to the earth with its approach to material and form. The project involved a close collaboration with friends and makers in the local community, exploring a level of craft made possible from relationships forged over years of making work together.

The Design-Build model is an increasingly attractive project delivery method, offering benefits such as enhanced control, reduced risks, cost efficiencies, and quicker completion times. Central to this approach is teamwork and collaboration, contrasting sharply with the traditional method of separate design and fixed-price bidding by contractors. Design-Build naturally motivates all participants to seek ways to boost productivity and quality, ensuring fairness and transparency in costs.

The Oratory of San Rocco is a restoration project of a historic former church, originally constructed between 1525 and 1542 in the heart of Padua's historic city center, Italy. The building stands on a site that was once a burial ground in front of the Church of Santa Lucia. Due to the significance of the monument and the increasing number of visitors drawn by temporary exhibitions, the need arose to expand its exhibition spaces and carry out a comprehensive renovation.