CARL (lecture hall building)

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CARL construction site in August 2015

The CARL ( Apronym for C entral A uditorium for R esearch and L earning , German: Central Auditorium for Research and Education ) is an auditorium of the RWTH Aachen on the central area east of the western train station . The CARL has an area of ​​14,000 square meters and has eleven lecture halls , the two largest of which have a capacity of 1,000 and 800 people, and 16 seminar rooms. Overall, the building can accommodate around 4,000 students, making it one of the largest lecture hall buildings in Europe. There were delays during construction so that the original opening date could not be met and temporary buildings had to be erected.

history

Planning and start of construction

Lecture hall H02 of the RWTH Aachen at the Science Night on November 10, 2017

Due to the double year of Abitur and the suspension of compulsory military service in Germany , RWTH Aachen University anticipated increasing student numbers for which the existing buildings did not offer sufficient capacity. It was decided to build a new lecture hall building; In 2009, the client, Bau- und Liegenschaftsbetrieb NRW , carried out an architecture competition that a Danish architecture firm, schmidt hammer Lassen architects, won. The design by the architects from Aarhus envisaged two building parts made of piled-up blocks protruding from the facade, which were to be connected in the middle by an atrium with cantilever bridges. A facade greening with integrated automatic irrigation was planned on the outer skin .

In February 2011, the existing buildings of the technical departments were demolished after they had received new buildings on Süsterfeldstrasse. In December 2011, the rector of RWTH Aachen University, Ernst Schmachtenberg , together with representatives from politics and business, broke ground. At that time, the target time of completion was 2013. But shortly afterwards it became clear that the costs of implementing the architects' design would exceed the budget of 45 million euros guaranteed by the university modernization program of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. As a result, changes to the planning were made: most of the projections and recesses were removed; the choice of materials adjusted and the green facade painted. Due to the changes, a construction delay of six months was estimated, the new opening date was set to spring 2014.

Construction freeze and search for temporary arrangements

On July 3, 2013 , the topping-out ceremony for the lecture hall center was celebrated in the presence of the State Minister for Building, Housing, Urban Development and Transport , Michael Groschek . At the same time, further delays were announced, as an invitation to tender had to be carried out above the threshold values, against which the public procurement tribunal was appealed in three cases. As a result, operations on the construction site were suspended and no further work could be carried out for several months. The decision on two of the three award procedures was made at the end of March 2014, and work on the construction site could only be resumed three months later.

Temporary lecture hall building TEMP

For the 2013/2014 winter semester, in addition to the 5,000 new students annually, another 2,200 new students were expected due to the double Abitur class. When it became foreseeable that opening in 2013 would not be possible, alternatives were sought. A conversion of the empty warehouses at the Westbahnhof formerly used by DB Schenker failed because the conversion work would be too extensive. In the meantime, the erection of tents for lecture purposes was not excluded. Finally, in the summer of 2013, after the former reception building of the Westbahnhof was demolished, the TEMP auditorium was built as a temporary system construction made of light metal with thermal insulation. The TEMP has two lecture halls with space for a total of 1,000 people; the cost of construction was 2 million euros. In January 2014, another temporary building, the SemiTEMP , was erected in a parking lot near the Reiff Museum . The SemiTEMP includes eight 80 square meter seminar rooms, its construction resulted in costs of a further 2.5 million euros. The TEMP building was dismantled after the CARL was completed. In 2018, a new temporary building TEMP was built on Republic Square for the time of the renovation of the Audimax , Kármán Auditorium and main building, as the number of students did not decrease contrary to previous forecasts. The SemiTEMP building was retained even after the completion of the CARL.

Completion and opening

In 2016, construction work was now making visible progress. The facade was created in light yellow and anthracite, following the overall color concept of the overall project by the Danish architectural firm schmidt hammer Lassen, and additional heating, ventilation, sanitary and electrical installations were implemented. Claßenstraße was redesigned from July 2015 to May 2016 in the area of ​​the CARL. It was u. a. a mixed water sewer was laid and the power lines were renewed. The work was completed four months ahead of schedule. The reorganization of the traffic areas made it possible to widen the sidewalk and a total of 800 bicycle parking spaces were created. The Audimax bus stop (in the direction of Ponttor) has been relocated from Turmstrasse to Claßenstrasse and is now located directly in front of the CARL.

However, the planned opening for the 2016/2017 winter semester could not be kept. In mid-November 2016, the lecture hall center was handed over to RWTH Aachen University by the construction and real estate company NRW Aachen. As announced in 2014, a trial run in the lecture hall center began on November 14, 2016. This took place from Monday to Wednesday, on the other days of the week fine adjustments were made and the facility was completed.

The CARL has been in regular operation since the summer semester 2017.

Naming

The name of the lecture hall center was determined in a competition organized by the AStA of RWTH Aachen University in December 2014 , in which around 2,000 university members took part. The chosen name, submitted by a PhD student, was announced in February 2015. The apronym is supposed to create a reference to Charlemagne , who had established his palace in Aachen . Before it was officially named, the name Hörsaalzentrum Claßenstraße was used; the name Schmachtenburg , based on the name of the Rector, Ernst Schmachtenberg , is also in circulation among students . When Ernst Schmachtenberg said goodbye, the lecture hall building was officially given the second name Schmachtenburg and has been labeled accordingly on a door of the main entrance ever since.

Web links

Commons : CARL RWTH Aachen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The new lecture hall center is called CARL website of RWTH Aachen University , February 5, 2015, accessed on August 1, 2015.
  2. ↑ a b Stephan Mohne: Construction freeze costs another 2.5 million euros. Website of the Aachener Zeitung , January 8, 2014, accessed on August 4, 2015.
  3. ↑ a b c Bau- und Liegenschaftsbetrieb NRW : Press release One of the largest lecture theater projects in Europe started - the Claßenstrasse lecture hall center will be able to accommodate over 4,000 RWTH Aachen students. BLB NRW is investing around 45 million euros on presseportal.de , December 6, 2011, accessed on August 1, 2015.
  4. ↑ Robert Uhde: Because of green! RWTH Aachen Lecture Hall Center ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) on mapolismagizin.com , October 2, 2011, accessed on August 1, 2015.
  5. ↑ Excavators have created space for the lecture hall center. Aachener Nachrichten website , February 17, 2011, accessed on August 4, 2015.
  6. ^ Werner Breuer: RWTH Lecture Center: Later and Modest. Aachener Nachrichten website , February 10, 2012, accessed on August 4, 2015.
  7. ↑ Construction and Real Estate Management NRW : Topping-out ceremony at the RWTH Aachen lecture hall center. Press release available on Focus Online , July 3, 2013, accessed on August 4, 2015.
  8. ↑ a b Thorsten Karbach: Lecture hall center: shell is finished, schedule is out of joint Website of the Aachener Zeitung , July 3, 2013, accessed on August 4, 2015.
  9. ↑ Thorsten Karbach: Waiting on the large construction site. Website of the Aachener Zeitung , August 28, 2013, accessed on August 4, 2015.
  10. ↑ Construction and real estate operation NRW : Construction of the lecture hall center Claßenstraße continues. Website of Bau- und Liegenschaftsbetrieb NRW, April 4, 2014, accessed on August 4, 2015.
  11. ↑ Thorsten Karbach: RWTH does not yet have a replacement for the lecture hall center on Claßenstraße. Website of the Aachener Zeitung , July 19, 2012, accessed on August 4, 2015.
  12. ↑ New temporary lecture hall building on Republikplatz. Press release. RWTH Aachen, March 28, 2018, accessed on August 10, 2019 .
  13. ^ Claßenstraße: More sidewalks and 800 bicycle parking spaces Website of Aachener Nachrichten , May 19, 2016, accessed on November 15, 2016.
  14. ↑ Lecture hall center: Can only be used in the 2016/17 semester. Aachener Nachrichten website, September 15, 2014, accessed on August 4, 2015.
  15. ↑ Oliver Schmetz: After more than five years, "Carl" is taking off . In: Aachener Zeitung . ( aachener-zeitung.de [accessed on June 19, 2017]).
  16. ↑ Carl, the great: Name for the lecture hall center. Aachener Nachrichten website , February 5, 2015, accessed on August 12, 2015.
  17. ↑ Audimoritz is delayed further . In: AStA der RWTH Aachen (ed.): 90 seconds . No. 5 , 2013, p. 1 ( full text ( memento from June 24, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF; 304 kB ]).
  18. ↑ RWTH Aachen video compilation of the farewell to Ernst Schmachtenberg , accessed on April 26, 2018

Coordinates: 50 ° 46 ′ 47.7 "  N , 6 ° 4 ′ 26"  E