NEUKÖLLN PUMPING STATION

CONVERSION / LIVING + WORKSHOP, BERLIN, 2008
BY NILS WENK AND JAN WIESE
Pumping station sounds a bit like sewage at first – not necessarily a place where you would like to live. Nevertheless, converting the pumping station Neukölln to a studio and apartment building was the first job to enable Jan Wiese to truly demonstrate his aspirations and capabilities. As if all that would not have been difficult enough, the builders were the artist couple Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, who had chosen the pumping station as their Berlin-domicile. One could have started simpler. But hardly more spectacularly, as it is astonishing to see how existing elements of the building were preserved and redefined, while the new elements were integrated simultaneously. If you were lucky enough to visit this pumping station, you would immediately understand why some lines were drawn, why other things needed to disappear. But above all, you come to understand that you are in a place where more than two artists are creatively active.
Project team
Nils Wenk
Jan Wiese
Awards:
HANS SCHAEFERS PREIS 2010
Deubau Preis 2010 (Honorable Mention)
HEINZE AWARD 2010 (3rd Prize)
Photography: Udo Meinel



Mobile crane system


Atelier section with transformed, mobile crane system







INNSTRASSE