Opening of Mathildenhöhe Exhibition Building

The reopening of the extensively renovated exhibition building on the Mathildenhöhe was celebrated at the end of September as part of the World Heritage Festival, alongside the ‘4-3-2-1 Darmstadt’ exhibition, which opened simultaneously. In 2012, Darmstadt City Council commissioned schneider+schumacher to carry out a renovation the exhibition building, built in 1908 at the highest point of the city according to plans by Josef Maria Olbrich. This building, alongside the city’s landmark Wedding Tower, constructed simultaneously, still characterises the cityscape to this day. Twelve years on from 2012, the exhibition building has been extended with yet another stratum of contemporary design, and technical services have been brought up to date. The changes encompass, for example, a new type of external insulating plaster, contemporary glazing, a new café located in the valve chamber of the former drinking water reservoir and a glazed linking structure between the Wedding Tower and the exhibition building, plus a sustainable energy concept that incorporates the historic water reservoir.

In 2021, with the renovation work ongoing, the Mathildenhöhe was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and as such it is recognised as a globally unique architectural and urban planning synthesis of the arts. This meant that the UNESCO committee also became involved in the plans, alongside the listed building authority. In the half-hour podcast ‘Architektourist’ by Alexandra Busch, Astrid Wuttke, the project architect in charge of the refurbishment, explains how this impacted not only planning but many other aspects of the renovation work too: