Approaching problems creatively

Architecture graduate Pascal Lange designed a fictitious sewing machine museum for the Pfaff site in Kaiserslautern as part of his thesis. It was important to him to work in a way that conserved resources. At the same time, however, he also wanted to preserve the history of the identity-forming site to some extent.

"Kaiserslautern, the city of PFAFF sewing machines" was once the advertising slogan of the Barbarossa city - and very aptly describes the decades-long connection between the city and the very Pfaff factory that produced sewing machines that were in demand worldwide. However, many of the factory buildings between Königstrasse and Herzog-von-Weimar-Strasse have now been demolished. Only a few are still standing. What the future of Pfaff could look like, however, was the subject of the final project at the Department of Architecture at RPTU in Kaiserslautern in summer 2022. The task was to create a design for an imagined German Sewing Machine Museum. Each of the graduates had four months to plan and integrate a place of technological history into the "Hansabau", one of the last remaining buildings on the site, which was built in 1954 according to plans by Johann Seeberger.

Sustainability is a major topic in architecture

One of the graduates was Pascal Lange: "The main focus of my idea is that I wanted to work in a way that conserves resources. That's why I tried to reuse components." Sustainability is now a major topic for architects. Not least because the construction sector is responsible for 38 percent of global CO2 emissions. However, Pascal Lange did not want to ignore the history of Pfaff in his plans: "When we first visited the site, I was shocked at how few of the former factory buildings were still there. So much had already been demolished." And this in view of the fact how identity-forming the brand once was: "In addition to soccer, Kaiserslautern is known far beyond the city limits primarily because of Pfaff." This is how he came up with his central idea: "In my design, I reused parts of the few existing buildings." In terms of planning, he mainly used components from the factory buildings in the north of the site that had been cleared for demolition: "I wanted to preserve the history of the site." In his design, you can see how the Hansabau is given a new lease of life with old bricks, room dividers and the entire supporting structure of the warehouses. To what extent was he able to use the content of his architecture degree to solve the task? "During my studies, I learned to think creatively. This creative or artistic approach to a task." The fact that components were reused, for example, "was not a direct requirement." (CP)

Source: This article was first published in a special supplement to the daily newspaper "DIE RHEINPFALZ" in May 2023.