“The location of HOCHTIEF has a long corporate tradition in Essen and it is a flagship for our city. The planned Corporate Headquarters will be a great business card for the globally active corporation and will fit wonderfully in this neighborhood,” said Essen’s mayor Thomas Kufen at the presentation of the architectural design for the new HOCHTIEF headquarters in the town hall of Essen. The company plans to build its new Corporate Headquarters where it has had its base since 1938—at its traditional location on Opernplatz.”
For the new-build, HOCHTIEF invited five renowned, international architectural firms to a design competition. The Group opted for the design by slapa oberholz pszczulny | sop architekten (Düsseldorf). “This design underlines the company’s role as a technologically leading and sustainable infrastructure group,” explained HOCHTIEF Executive Board member Nikolaus Graf von Matuschka. To date, HOCHTIEF employees have worked at two different locations in Essen. “With the Corporate Headquarters we are creating an environment that nurtures creativity and is characterized by short distances and modern workplaces,” von Matuschka promised.
The plan is for a six-story, transparent building that, in terms of urban design, fits in seamlessly between the RWE tower, Aalto Theater and the neighboring residential buildings and offers room for around 1,100 employees.
sop architekten have also taken up the proximity to the Stadtgarten park. Their design comprises spacious, green, usable inner courtyards and roof areas. The building will thus make a positive contribution to the city’s climate. The sustainability of the project is one of the design’s basic principles, with the new headquarters planned to obtain green building Gold certification from the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB).
The employees working at Opernplatz will relocate to the offices at Alfredstraße by mid-December. The dismantling measures are intended to start in March 2020.