https://www.ksg-architekten.info/de/projekte/transformation/quelle-areal-nuernberg/
The Q
Nuremberg
The architect Ernst Neufer designed the
former source mail order company along
Fürther Straße. It was built as a shipping
and logistics center from 1953, completed
in five construction phases until 1969.
By 2026, the property will be transformed
by ksg into an open, lively city district
called – “ The Q ” –.
Project information
The Quelle mail order and department
store in Nuremberg is an impressively
large commercial building that was
built in various construction phases in
the 1950s after the planning by
Ernst Neufert. The size and importance
of the corporate architecture is in line
with Egon Eiermann's Neckermann
building or the Gerling area in Cologne.
Historically, Quelle as a mail order company
after the war was an important engine for
Germany's economic development and is
a symbol of the economic miracle. As the
protagonist of „ Moderne “, Neufert created
an architecture, which set a stage for their
impressive machinery inside and offered
the opportunity to make the corporate
philosophy of the client Gustav Schickedanz
the subject of a significant corporate
architecture.To do this, Neufert did not
orient the height of the window hinges on
humans as usual and gave the workers
a view, but created a design detail with a
window hinge at a height of 1.5 m, that
staged the transport of the goods via
treadmills on the ceiling and made them
tangible from the outside. Floating
packages that made their way through
logistics impressively demonstrated how
each individual part of the huge range
was put together quickly and smoothly
for the customer. The long window strips
and the parapets made of yellow brick
shape the shape of the building in a
radically reduced expression.Floating
packages that made their way through
logistics impressively demonstrated how
each individual part of the huge range
was put together quickly and smoothly
for the customer. The long window strips
and the parapets made of yellow brick
shape the shape of the building in a
radically reduced expression. Floating
packages that made their way through
logistics impressively demonstrated how
each individual part of the huge range was
put together quickly and smoothly for the
customer. The long window strips and the
parapets made of yellow brick shape the
shape of the building in a radically
reduced expression.
In 2009 Quelle went bankrupt and more
than 250,000 m ² area was empty.
Several attempts to try to convert them
were ineffective and in the meantime it
looked like, as if demolition was the only
way to master the huge area.