Topping-Out Ceremony for the New Lecture Hall Center
A few days ago, the building shell of one of the largest and most modern lecture hall centers in Europe was completed on the campus of RWTH Aachen. Construction professionals, craftsmen, and representatives from RWTH Aachen, politics, administration, and business celebrated the topping out of the Claßenstraße Lecture Hall Center on Wednesday, July 3, 2013. NRW Minister of Construction Michael Groschek was impressed by the dimension of the new building: " This lighthouse project represents the building cultural responsibility of the state. It improves study conditions and strengthens the Excellence university in Aachen. It's a win for the entire region," said Groschek.
The NRW Construction and Real Estate Agency, BLB NRW, invested approximately 45 million euros from the university modernization program in the new multistory building. Ute Willems, Deupty Head of the BLB branch in Aachen, praised the builders, architects, and engineers for their involvement: " Creating a lecture hall center of this size in a dense space is a great technical and logistical challenge for planners and builders, which has been exemplary solved." The first lectures in the lecture hall center will be held in 2015.
The NRW Construction and Real Estate Agency explored all fathomable possibilities to keep delays and financial damages as minimal as possible. For students from the double class cohorts, the delay meant further temporary accomodation. "There is currently a so-called system hall near the West Train Station, it is heat-insulated and provides the appropriate acoustics. There is room for 1000 students in the two lecture halls there," explained RWTH Chancellor Manfred Nettekoven.
The new Claßenstraße Lecture Hall Center will immediately provide room for 4000 RWTH Aachen students. The 14000 square meters of space include eleven lecture halls, 16 seminar rooms, a break room with a café, and spaces for the physics collection, storage, and work areas. Four stell trusses with a total length of 56 meters each are stretched across the building. They carry not only the weight of the roof of the two biggest lecture halls but also the seminar rooms on the second floor and the ventilatio and cooling equipment. The two biggest lecture halls offer 1000 and 800 seats in the new building located between the campus areas Mitte or Center and West. The architecture is by Danish office schmidt hammer lassen architects from Aarhaus. The firm won the international realization competition in 2009 held by the BLB NRW.
NRW Construction and Real Estate Agency
Bernd Klass
Tel.: +49 241 43 510 586