European Central Bank (ECB), Frankfurt, Germany

Object Type
Office Buildings
Working Worlds
Multifunction

Client
Europäische Zentralbank, Frankfurt

Architects
COOP HIMMELB(L)AU, London

Completion
2021

Expertises
Audiovisual System Design

The new building of the European Central Bank (ECB) was erected on the site of the heritagelisted former Grossmarkthalle in Frankfurt am Main. COOP HIMMELB(L)AU designed the new ECB headquarters as three main elements: the former Grossmarkthalle, the double office tower, 185 m high, with a towering atrium, and the new entrance building. The former Grossmarkthalle houses the most public areas of the ECB, among them the lobby, visitor center, conference area, library and the employee restaurant. In 2014, the new building was completed and employees moved in. The installation of the media technology equipment was completed in 2016.

The Müller-BBM team was responsible for the design of and site supervision concerning all media technology installations. These included the media technology equip-ment for 45 conference rooms of various size (for approx. 10 to 300 attendees) with quite varied media technology features to be planned and installed: presentation technology, conference techno-logy, interpreting technology, electroacoustic equipment, recording and documentation systems for a number of separate audio channels, video conferencing equipment and media control systems. Moreover, the installations comprised all media technology in the pertaining plant rooms, the required infrastructure as well as the OB van interconnections and all equipment for a press conference room. The network technology required for all media technology systems, mobile presentation and sound reinforcement equipment as well as background sound systems in the lobby and corridors of the conference areas were also part of the technical installations.
The planned systems are based on a digital transmission of sound and vision and primarily use a traditional network cabling for signal trans-mission. This way, it was possible to reduce the installation of special cables and to use the standard IT cabling instead.

Image Copyright
1 European Central Bank | Robert Metsch
2 European Central Bank | Robert Metsch