Die Eiche

Architectural
encounter

© Jörg Schwarze

Lübeck’s Han­sa­ha­fen mari­na is calm. A gent­le wind blows around the brick faca­des of nume­rous his­to­ri­cal buil­dings. In the cent­re of the Old Town stands an impo­sing red brick buil­ding with an orna­te woo­den door: the colum­ba­ri­um in the for­mer ‘Die Eiche’ grana­ry. An indi­vi­du­al atti­tu­de to death – engrai­ned in the city of Lübeck’s cul­tu­re, with vast socio­lo­gi­cal roots and accom­pa­nied by well-cura­ted art – is illus­tra­ted at a venue with its very own philosophy.

Profound collaboration

Crea­ting a place of reflec­tion. Sur­roun­ded by the dead – with room for dis­cus­sion and thoughts. We devo­te our­sel­ves to this task while deve­lo­ping the archi­tec­tu­re and inte­rior design of the colum­ba­ri­um in the for­mer ‘Die Eiche’ grana­ry, whe­re around 2,000 urns are loca­ted, and the decea­sed can be com­me­mo­ra­ted in a digni­fied set­ting. We deve­lo­ped the con­cept for this spe­cial venue, are designing spaces and fur­ni­tu­re that ful­fil this requi­re­ment and built a respect­ful bridge bet­ween past and present.

Ser­vice phases:
LPH 1 – 9
Area:
1,400 m²
Pro­ject status:
imple­men­ta­ti­on planning
Ope­ning:
2022
© Pho­to archi­ve of the Han­sea­tic city of Lübeck

Architectural design with an emotional impact

Built in 1873 as a grana­ry and fol­lowing many years of use, the typi­cal Han­sea­tic red brick buil­ding of the colum­ba­ri­um is loca­ted on the edge of Lübeck Old Town. We com­ple­te­ly reno­va­te the seven floo­rs of this archi­tec­tu­ral tre­a­su­re, while retai­ning its fun­da­men­tal essence. We also do lots of soul-sear­ching when it comes to the inte­rior design. Fur­ther­mo­re, we respect­ful­ly reinte­gra­te a num­ber of his­to­ric ele­ments, such as hard­wood boards on every floor, for examp­le. The result will be a soul­ful place that hono­urs the cha­rac­ter of the past.

Alluring interior

The two-hund­red-year-old hea­vy woo­den doors of Lübeck colum­ba­ri­um open sur­pri­sin­gly easi­ly to reve­al the inte­rior. But even from the out­side, you can glim­pse the impres­si­ve ligh­t­ing instal­la­ti­on con­sis­ting of hund­reds of deli­ca­te por­ce­lain sli­vers. And they make such a won­der­ful noi­se that you can­not help but stop and lis­ten to this spe­cial sound.