EN 
DE Duisburg's historic inner harbour is now home to the NRW State Archive (Rhineland department), the largest archive building in Germany. However, it is not only impressive due to its location directly on the water and the 76 metre high archive tower. It is also an impressive testimony to the successful conversion of historical buildings and sensitive urban development that takes the history of a place into account. Today's archive is located in the former warehouse of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Speditions-Gesellschaft and was listed as a historical monument in 2006 because it is one of the last granaries in Duisburg's inner harbour and also one of the last examples of the architecture of large warehouses from the 1930s. It is also one of the few remaining historical buildings in Duisburg's city centre, which was badly damaged during the Second World War.
As part of the conversion of the former granary, an undulating, 160 metre long wing was added, which now houses the archive's reading room and offices, among other things, and combines history and sophisticated, modern architecture in the best possible way. During the renovation of the warehouse, the brick façade, which had been weathered by soot, was largely preserved; only the previously existing small windows were bricked up to protect the archive material from daylight. The modern new building blends in perfectly thanks to a matching coat of paint.
The reason for the trip to the NRW state archives organised by M&P Hannover was to research historical aerial photographs. The aim was to reconstruct the historical use of a property for a client using the aerial image material in order to better assess the risk of possible contaminated sites - which could require remediation. In a double sense, the trip was an example of the possibilities that open up when knowledge from the past is used to shape the future.
