Diocese Library, Seminary and Episcopal Administration Buildings
The concept is a composition that recreates and reforms the space the spaces of the trapezoidal-shaped site.
The Überwasser Church of Our Lady and the T-shaped seminary lie in the centre of the first urban extension of Münster. They form an orthogonal arrangement that stands in visible contrast to the surrounding urban structure. The project offers a clear, ensemble-generating complement to the existing buildings on the site, counteracting all contrast.
The composition of the three new volumes forms varying "voids" a typical courtyard, a garden, a lane and arcade passages. The library on the west and both of the administration buildings on the east are arranged around the seminary-like guards the historical orthogonality is, as it were, reinforced and retained in a communicative manner by the volumes, while being more strongly incorporated into the surroundings. Recalling the famous Romanesque complex near Pisa, the building volumes appear to grow out of the rigidly organised open spaces, which, in turn, have been created by the buildings themselves.
The design of the library thematises a likeness with the typology of a bookshelf, whose form, in turn, is related to that of a book. When pursued further, that leads to the arrangement of the lines, of the words and, indeed, of the individual letters.
The design of the facade arises therein. Openings with a deep embrasure (analogous to vertical rectangles or, in order to stay with the analogy, the ends of the bookshelves) reflect this typology. Ultimately, the books become almost palpable.
The new library and administration buildings are built in sandstone in a similar colour as the church and the seminary, bringing together the parts from different ages.
The unity of the facades wrapped around the three cubes like a skin, merges the complex to a harmonious ensemble which architectonically and artistically points out as well the book and its tradition as the place of the church and the theology.