First a few numbers: According to preliminary information from the statistical office, 337 houses were demolished in Munich in 2023, and additional reports may still come. Almost every day a residential, office or commercial building disappears in the city to make way for a new building. The city does not have any figures on how many houses were renovated in the same period, because renovations are not a separate statistical category. And that’s where the problem is named.
Renovations play only a minor role for the construction industry; they rely on demolition and new construction – comparatively cheaper, is the core argument. But anyone who calculates like this is, first of all, closing their eyes to the waste: almost 54 percent of German waste generation in 2021 was excavated soil, dredged material, railway ballast, construction rubble and road demolition. Cause: the construction industry.
And secondly, such a simple calculation ignores the so-called gray energy that is in every house. For example in the concrete or the insulation material or the tiles that were manufactured at some point, transported to the construction site and installed. If a house is renovated, this energy remains tied up in the shell. If it is flattened, emissions are created.
Robert Philipp is one who thinks this is a waste – not sustainable in times of climate change. The 62-year-old is both an architect and an energy consultant, he also has training as a mediator, and he is committed to preserving and renovating buildings instead of letting the demolition excavators come. He has also slipped into a polar bear costume a few times.
For example, together with twelve other, mostly young architects, to demonstrate for the preservation of the old criminal justice center on Nymphenburger Straße. “Cancel cancel” is the name of the campaign, there is a film on YouTube with the dancing polar bears, they warble “24,000 tons of CO₂ bye-bye” and “Ten floors of reinforced concrete won’t fall over on their own”.
The old Hotel Königshof was demolished in 2019.
(Photo: Catherina Hess)
The amount of CO₂ emissions released during demolition has Robert Philipp on his website calculated for a few other projects in Munich. For example, for the 1960s building at Prannerstrasse 4 next to the new Rosewood Hotel, which had to make way for an office building in 2019: The demolition results in CO₂ emissions of around 8,216 tons. According to Philipp, just as much would be freed up if around 225 average single-family homes were heated with gas for ten years. Or the old royal court: 3,399 tons of CO₂, ten years of natural gas for 93 single-family homes. The main station: 77,900 tons of CO₂, 2,140 warm single-family homes. All of this would be surpassed by the Arabellahaus in Bogenhausen, whose demolition has been discussed since 2017: 88,329 tons of CO₂, ten years of natural gas for 2,426 single-family homes.
The excavator gnaws at the canopy, commonly called “Schwammerl”: In 2019, the ticket hall of Munich Central Station disappeared.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
Demolition in 2030? The Arabellahaus on Rosenkavalierplatz in Bogenhausen.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
“We have to find a new way of dealing with the inventory,” Robert Philipp concludes from his figures. His credo: A house that has been renovated in terms of energy efficiency has no disadvantages compared to a new building with the same shell and technology. In order to encourage a rethink, Philipp is also committed to this Demolition Atlas. In this new project – initiated in Germany by the Architects for Future, among others – anyone interested can record and comment on buildings that have been demolished since 2020 or will be demolished in the coming years on the Internet.
The demolition atlas has been online for three and a half months. Almost 1,000 candidates have now been documented across Germany, and around 80 in Munich, with a focus on Schwabing, Maxvorstadt and Ludwigsvorstadt. The first project that Robert Philipp has registered is the former Capuchin monastery at Tengstrasse 7, which, according to him, has been empty since 2013 and will make way for a student dormitory this year. “Energy-related renovation at new building level is absolutely possible,” he wrote in the comment column as an argument against demolition.
But how should it work? How should the construction industry, with a share of a good twelve percent of the gross domestic product and almost six percent of employees in Germany, reinvent itself? And do that as quickly as possible given the housing shortage and climate change? “The tanker is running, we can already see the iceberg,” says Philipp. He admits that changing course is difficult; the industry, the investors and the approval authorities are slow. He will probably never live to see a conversion regulation that makes building in existing buildings easier and is required by the Federal Chamber of Architects.
But doesn’t a brand new building like this have much more appeal for investors and future residents than, say, a revised exposed concrete building from the 1970s? Just move in instead of having to deal with statics, fire protection, sound insulation and pollutants? Robert Philipp doesn’t accept the issue of pollutants. They always have to be disposed of separately, regardless of whether they are being demolished or renovated. For the rest, he chooses a philosophical answer: Up until now, new houses have always been built for new needs. In the future, we have to think the other way around and find new uses for what already exists.
50,000 square meters of floor space in the brutalist style: the justice center on Nymphenburger Straße. A decision will be made this year as to whether it will be preserved.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
An example could be the old justice center on Nymphenburger Strasse, 50,000 square meters of brutalist-style floor space on a 17,500 square meter site. The Free State had originally planned the demolition. There was resistance to this, not just from the polar bears, and now Construction Minister Christian Bernreiter is checking whether affordable apartments could be accommodated in the existing building. If the neighbors from the Bennoviertel and Munich’s local politicians have their way, they shouldn’t just be rented to state employees.