Two boardwalks lead through the former forced labor camp in Neuaubing. Some squares are covered with organically curved roofs. These elements are the most striking of the winning design for the Ehrenbürgstraße 9 memorial site. Everything else, deliberately designed in this way, only becomes apparent on closer inspection: the charm of the winning work is that it is subtle, can be experienced intuitively, but is all the more emphatic.
“The great art was to achieve the greatest possible effect in a minimally invasive manner,” says Christine Peter from the architectural office SPP Sturm Peter + Partner. “We tried very, very carefully to superimpose the timelines of forced labor camp and art and culture oasis.” Together with the TRR landscape architects Ritz and Ließmann and the scenography office Müller-Rieger, the Munich-based company won first prize from eleven competitors in the realization competition for the renovation of the area as a monument and nature conservation and has now been commissioned with the planning.
The hidden site on the border to the newly emerging district of Freiham is home to one of only two completely preserved complexes in Germany of what were once more than 30,000 Nazi forced labor camps during the Second World War, the other is in Berlin-Schoeneweide. The National Socialists forcibly deported 13 million foreign workers from their home towns. In Munich alone, between 150,000 and 200,000 civilian forced labourers, prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates were housed in more than 550 camps or collective accommodations.
From 1939 to 1945, the National Socialist regime set up more than 400 forced labor camps in the Munich area. Women and men of different nationalities were interned in these camps and forced to support and maintain the war economy.
The historically significant shantytown at Ehrenbürgstraße 9 with its eight buildings around a large courtyard that is now overgrown is also something special because it has changed over time. Because it has become a creative place for artists and craftsmen, a free space for independent, self-determined work. Artists and cultural workers have always upheld memories of the past. The complex task of the competition was to link these two levels, to enable a mutually beneficial coexistence of history and the present.
The listed Barrack 5 in the former forced labor camp is to become a branch of the NS Documentation Center.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
The parallel wooden walkways, called “rays” by the architects around Christine Peter, symbolize these two periods. The western ray is under the sign of remembrance and commemoration of historical heritage. It connects barracks 2 and 5, which as part of the museum will become branch offices of the NS documentation center. There will be exhibitions there.
The forecourt is partially covered and is intended to offer visitor groups a protected gathering area. Especially the surface of this square, which consists of formed concrete slabs: It is reminiscent of historical railway sleepers. Walkers and cyclists who pass the memorial site directly on the public footpath and cycle path connection between Freiham and Neuaubing should perceive the difference in the path at this point as a gentle reference to the memorial site.
In the direction of the inner courtyard of the facility, the idea of what the draftsmen call a “sculptural intervention”: directly on the jetty, an alienated model embedded in the floor is intended to show the structure of the camp as it looked during the Nazi era. In miniature, “like flying over it in an airplane,” explains Peter. The whole thing was “intended as a surprise moment” for the visitors.
It is planned to clear the undergrowth in the middle of the courtyard, which is currently almost like a sleeping beauty, so that only a few trees will remain. With the aim of creating visual axes and perspectives between the barracks. But even this cannot completely avoid the remaining vegetation overwriting the bare, bare functionality of the former camp. This sculpture should therefore trigger a “double view” in the viewer, a look “down into the historical abyss and up into the creative revival” of the area.
The artists and craftsmen on the site are very impressed with the winning design
And the function of the second, eastern ray? It is designed as a “culture band” and invites you to spontaneous encounters with the artists. This walkway is enlivened by several semi-mobile shelters, which serve as workspaces for the artists or can also be used for exhibitions. “A nice solution”, as sculptor Peter Heesch praises as chairman of the free studios and workshops in Ehrenbürgstrasse.
In general, the artists and craftsmen on the site, who feared in advance that the renovation could destroy their idyll, are very impressed with the selected winning design. The fact that these “work decks” alternate along the jetty with two plant-free one-man bunkers, in which the guards disappeared during air raids during camp times, while the forced laborers remained unprotected, also from the artist’s point of view sharpens the tension between the former constraint of the roll-call square and the present, creative freedom.
The neighboring Neuaubing children’s and youth farm will also benefit from this design. Not only that the “jungle”, an adventure playground in the midst of many trees, is still being compacted. Barrack 8, which can be used again by the farm after the renovation, will also have an additional access axis to the north. A “brilliant coup,” says Heesch. There are also rain and sun-protected seating islands in a forum designed as a meeting place and place to stay, with opportunities for presentations, film screenings and concerts. Open-air events with up to 250 visitors should be able to take place here.
From the jury’s point of view, an “interesting suggestion for orientation that still needs to be discussed” are information pillars that are intended as “open doors” and point out distinctive features. In the opinion of the competition jury, the design of the exhibition also requires “further planning”. The focus is now initially on barracks 2 and 5, intended as a Nazi documentation center annex. According to the city’s redevelopment plan, the memorial site will actually be rebuilt in 2024 at the earliest. An exhibition of all the competition results is planned for mid-May.