Seminar Building in Berlin by Staab Architects

When the Berlin factory owner Ernst Marlier commissioned Paul Baumgarten to build a villa in the 'Colonie Alsen' on the Großer Wannsee in 1914-15, he had no idea what would happen to the building almost 30 years later: On 20 January 1942, the Wannsee Conference took place here, where 15 high-ranking representatives of the Nazi government planned the extermination of Europe's Jews.

The single-storey seminar building is located on the southern boundary of the site, next to the garden centre building. © Marcus Ebener

However, it would be another 50 years before the site was properly used as a memorial. In the post-war period, the representative building was mainly used as a school dormitory – an uncanny idea in retrospect. In 1992, the House of the Wannsee Conference Memorial and Educational Centre was opened in the villa. The exhibition, which takes up the entire ground floor, is well worth seeing – but for a long time there was no room to expand the educational programme.

The atrium runs the full width of the building and has full-height glazing facing the garden. © Marcus Ebener

Back in 2015, Staab Architekten won the competition for a single-storey seminar building on the southern boundary of the site, between the former gardener's house and the rose garden. Nine years later, it has finally been completed. The new building is entered through a full-length atrium with a barrel-vaulted roof reminiscent of Louis Kahn's Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. The space facing the old building is completely glazed. At the rear, three doors with deep reveals lead into the hall, which can be divided by folding walls into three seminar rooms of equal size. It is flanked on both sides by adjoining rooms: To the east are the sanitary facilities, to the west the chair storage and technical areas. The timber panelling around the hall acts as a parking pocket for the folding walls and also accommodates built-in furniture, sun protection, lighting and media technology.

Doors with deep reveals lead into the large, divisible hall. © Marcus Ebener

The exterior walls and roof of the seminar building were cast seamlessly and monolithically in lightweight concrete. The building is supplied with cold and heat via geothermal boreholes and a heat pump, and the flat roof is extensively landscaped. There is a café in the neighbouring gardener's house.