This month the watchtower / landmark ‘Indemann’ officially opened in Inden, near Aachen, Germany. The design by Maurer United Architects [MUA] reminds one of a giant robot, 36 meters high, and is seen as the new ‘Wahrzeichen der Region’ in the Euregion Meuse-Rhine.

“The current themes of the disappearing borders within Europe and the way regions must re-invent and profile themselves are very present in this project”, says Marc Maurer, architect and member of the BALTAN Laboratories artistic board. “The project shows our approach towards citybranding, design and architecture detailing. It is so nice to see it works after all the effort that was made”, adds his partner, architect Nicole Maurer.

With the design, the architects want to mark the shift from the industrial era to a media era. For now, the watchtower look over the enormous mining machines that will continue their search for coal in the next two decades. After that, a huge ecological water resort will develop at this site, one of Germany’s largest lakes.

“In the design we tried to approach the border between sculptural and architectonic design. The character is simplified to such a degree that on a human scale it cannot be seen as such (only from a far distance). It appears as a composition of architectural experiments with large extensions, surprising transparencies and, for instance, a see-through floor at 18 meters high.”

Furthermore, 40.000 LED-lights have been assembled on the façade. Within Europe, there has never been an LED-façade realised on this scale. It works as a folded screen with vertical pixels of 165cm x 10cm.

“We started the project by writing a fairytale that would communicate the profile of the region. In the end of the story, the local citizens are building a monument for the giant that helped them physically and strategically. The fact that the watchtower now is being built for real, proves that fairytales can come true.”

The Indemann is open to the public daily until 20:00 and on Saturday until 22:00 (for the illumination of the facade, evening visits are strongly recommended).

BALTAN will be collaborating with the Indemann by inviting media artists to propose short animations for the facade. Check back here soon for more information on how you can submit your work.

For more information and images of the Indemann, see http://www.maurerunited.com/blog/

Tags: collaboration, maurer united architects, media facades

This entry was posted on Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 3:05 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.