CASTLE ROCK
to create new accomodations for the saxon mining archives,
AFF ARCHITECTS drastically
reconstructed Freudenstein castle
When the specifications for refurbishing an existing building for new use prove to be difficult, it some- times takes young, fresh architects with a radical concept to achieve results that can fulfil all expectations. In revamping the Freudenstein Castle, located between Chemnitz and Dresden in the south- eastern German region of Saxony, AFF Architects were able to convince the client and local preservation society to drastically reconstruct, partially because the building had already experienced several such upheavals in its history. The castle was built at the end of the 12th century as a fortress for the city of Freiberg, enabling undisturbed mining of the silver that had been discovered in ihe vicinity. Mining ore, especially the veins of silver in the surrounding mountains, became the cornerstone for the city and castle's rapidly growing importance over the following centuries. The edifice served as a residence for dukes and princes until the beginning of the 18th century, bot then a saga of war damages, conversion and decay began. In the following period the castle became a military hospital, prison camp, military base and, in the 20"' century, a storage facility for coffee and grain. The castle was extensively reconstructed, especially when it was taken into use as a warehouse. The Renaissance windows were replaced with small openings; inside, low (barely 2.20-m) storeys based on a stable wood-pillar construction were added, creating a dark, functional interior. lt was not until 1988 that the first restorations were carried out in the building, which was as badly damaged by poor maintenance as by the reconstructions. Now the castle will become a 'cultural site': the Saxon Mining Archives are moving in with a collection of about 106,000 drawings and maps as well as 4,600 m of files from six centuries of regional mining history. Among these are original drawings from the 15th century on tunnel mining structures and administrative files from Saxon mining companies. In addition to the 2,000 qm of archive area is a presentation foyer for smaller exhibitions and a study hall. And the "I'echnical University of the Mining Academy'- a training facility for miners founded in 1765 - will exhibit a mineralogical collection called 'Terra Mineralia' here. With approximately 80,000 artefacts, it will be one of the world´s largest collections of crystals and minerals.
While Berlin-based AFF Architects are certainly not inexperienced, they've not yet worked on such a scale - and with such an existing building. 'When we signed the contract, we had to secure a completion date that allowed onlv 156 weeks for the realization. It was a little like someone had put a gun to our heads,' explains Sven Fröhlich. The architects developed an objective and consistent reconstruction logic from the eclectic building history. First, the demands of the new use as an archive and exhibition space needed to be fulfilled, with all necessary interventions. At the same time the castle's exterior appearance should remain as unchanged as possible, with the various existing time layers retained equally and their differences made even more legible. To further facilitate this legibility, all newly added elements needed to formulate a clear distance from the historical portions. Two of the four castle wings, the 'Narrow' and the 'New' House, were reconstructed in their Renaissance form. The two new functions were housed in the two large buildings, the 'Church Wing' in the east and the 'Long House' in the north: none of the existing buildings could be adjusted to be able to fulfil tlie climalic and structural requirements for storing 15th century paper documents. The solution is surprising, logical and consistent. 'WhaL we found was essentially alreadv a gutted Renaissance castle. The wooden storage structure spanned all four castle wings. Tlie entire building was in essence a historical facade with a wooden warehouse inside,'says Fröhlich. AFF suggested fully regutting the church wing and inserting the mining archive's volume as an independent building in raw concrete; a house within a house. The archive reaches through the interior like a large parasite. The new construction leaves a respectable airspace between it and the historical shell - the castle facade can be read as a backdrop. Structurally it is held by concrete consoles, attached to concrete bodies like short bristles. These protrude through the historical facade on three sides through the windows, and from outside thev seem like stony organisms that are reaching for the sun. Subtly noticeable bot also alien and strange, they evoke a curiosity from outside of what might be hidden inside. The architects call these cantilevered brackets 'scoops', a term for light wells.
As they are set up in mining. They serve as lighting only at one point: in the reading room in the south of the archive corpus. All other scoops are completely closed, acting only as structural elements and as an architectural metaphor. References to mining are found again and again throughout the entire design. For instance, the darkly coloured archive corpus was “nigged“ : the concrete is, so speak, tapped off, so the outside concrete layer flakes away. This allowed the light-hued quartz pebbles inserted into the concrete to appear. A broken, textured surface emerges, according to Fröhlich , as a “conscious quotation of a miner´s work; the longing to dig under the and search for what is hidden“. The entire shell, the ceiling over the prententation foyer, and the groundfloor reading room appear in this raw quality – as if they were dug out of the monolith. The lighting rods´raw, open suspension underscores the space´s character, which is luckily arier and better lit than real mine shafts.
´We wandet to create another metaphor with the colour concepts´, says Fröhlich. It´s about an “aha“- effect- when you break a stone and the colour within are revealed´. Selected areas in the building especially emphasized in this way. The stairwell in this archivecorpus´s middle section was painted a bright yellow, the entryway´s interior is crimson and a bright renn stairwell ist he administrative tract, which was placed into the ´Great Tower´ in the south-eastern section. This architectural interventions in the castle obviously convinced the city, which commissioned the architects to design the yard and the LongHouse´s exhibition architecture during the building process . In collaboration with landscape planner Birgit Hammer , they realized yet another mining metaphor in the yard. Fröhlich: ´Crystals are actually classified by their basic forms. We cut thr granite stones in the yard so that they emulate some of these forms. The plates are engraved to a slightly three-diminsional effect – as leasr when they´re wet´. With its new architecture, the refurbished Freudenstein castle becomes an exhibition piece in itself. It demands a kind of miner mentality from its visitors, who have to dig fort he treasures in the architecture. Then the building reveals itself to the visitors as what it certainly is – a jewel.
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