gmp in the Age of Conversion

It is understandable for visitors to walk right by UMBAU. Nonstop Transformation, given that the Goethe-Institut New York's ground-floor gallery space and library at 30 Irving Place are shrouded by a sidewalk shed and chain link fencing related to construction work being done overhead, but they will be missing a small but rewarding exhibition focused on one of the most important types of architectural projects today: building conversions. The German word Umbau, in fact, translates to conversions, centering the importance of them in the work of Hamburg's gmp · Architekten von Gerkan, Marg und Partner. The exhibition's subtitle, Nonstop Transformation, indicates that such a process is constant. One could even say that, from the moment a building is completed, it is always being converted into something else: by the occupants using it on a daily basis; through interior renovations that will no doubt happen over time; when new mechanical and other services are upgraded in later years; or even when large-scale structural changes are needed to make buildings meet contemporary needs or so one use can give way to another. The six projects in UMBAU show a diversity in approaches to the last — the large-scale refurbishments and conversions that follow decades after a building's completion.

According to “The gmp UMBAU Index” found in the companion catalog to the exhibition, between 1977 and today gmp has worked on exactly 89 conversion projects. Listed first is the Fabrik Cultural Center in Hamburg, a 19th-century building that burned down in 1971 and gmp reconstructed in 1979. Last on the list is STRzero Terminal 4 at Stuttgart Airport, which gmp was just awarded, as reported by Katinka Corts in her German-Architects article on the UMBAU exhibitions. That airport project is ongoing, obviously, but so are another 28 conversion projects, the oldest of which the firm has been working on since 2011; most of the 28 date to this decade, foregrounding the way adaptive-reuse projects have become one of the most important ways for architects to be reduce carbon emissions. Interestingly, of the more than two-dozen ongoing projects, four of them involve gmp's own buildings: Hanseviertel, a shopping arcade built in Hamburg in 1980; the 50-year-old Buildings B and K at the decommissioned Berlin Tegel Airport TXL; the 20-year-old Deutsche Bank Park in Frankfurt am Main; and the European Patent and Trademark Office built in Munich in 1980. This last point raises the thinking that needs to accompany new construction today: designing for the conversions of future generations, be it through robust structures that last centuries, lightweight and easily adaptable structures, clipped-on facades, easily demountable assemblies, or other approaches.

One result of having a portfolio of nearly 90 conversions is being able to cater their selection for each UMBAU venue. The projects in Venice and Hamburg, therefore, are different than the ones on display in New York, just as those are then different from the projects in Berlin next week and those that will be in the forthcoming Shanghai exhibition. Although their geographies are diverse — three of the six projects on display at the Goethe-Institut New York are located in Germany, two are in China, and one is in Spain — one thing in common is that they are all public: a hotel, a museum, a music hall, a stadium, a library, and a university. Four of the six projects have been completed, leaving two in-progress projects: the restructuring of Hans Scharoun's Berlin State Library at Potsdamer Platz and the conversion of a massive steel factory in Shanghai's Baoshan District into a new home for the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts.

Regardless of typology, location, size, construction status, or any other variable, all six projects in the NYC iteration of UMBAU are presented in three media: drawings, models, and digital displays of photographs for completed buildings and renderings for in-progress projects. Even though the digital images are helpful in immersing visitors in the spaces of the conversions, and a few of the models are cut to allow similarly immersive glances within their sections, the drawings — hung on sheets in the middle of the storefront space, as in the photo above — are the most helpful elements for understanding the relationship between old and new. It is done simply, in a way that is established but works so well it doesn't need to change: black lines indicate existing construction and red lines are new construction. So, visitors can look at a floor plan and quickly understand how, for example, the structure of the Chao Hotel was retained but the facade was replaced, the hotel rooms were reconfigured, and elevators were added. Excessive amounts of red, as in the Kunsthalle Mannheim, indicate a lot of new construction and point to exceptional circumstances. These two projects and the four others in UMBAU. Nonstop Transformation are briefly described below, but a visit to the Goethe-Institut New York is recommended, to see the drawings and other elements in person and to pick up a copy of the handsome catalog.