Falkwan Library

The Folkwang University of the Arts is an arts and music university in North Rhine-Westphalia. Its main campus is in the former Benedictine abbey of St. Ludgerus in Essen-Werden, in the southern Ruhr valley. The eighth-century site was enlarged in the eighteenth century into a Baroque princely residence arranged around a grand courtyard. The new library on the south side of the courtyard, designed by Max Dudler, replaces a nineteenth-century military hospital that was demolished in 1969. In 2006 Dudler won the design competition run by the Duisburg branch of the North Rhine-Westphalia building and real estate authority. The project received strong support from the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation. In 1811, while the region was still under French occupation, a prison was established at the Werden abbey; the Prussians expanded it and built a hospital on the south side of the courtyard. After the hospital was demolished, the remaining fragments felt incoherent. The new building does not reproduce the original form of the prison but, through its large glazed volume, encloses one side of the courtyard. To the east it adjoins the former administrative wing of the abbey; in massing it roughly corresponds to the Prussian wing on the other side of the courtyard. The Folkwang Library is read as a monolith set on top of a rough old stone wall. Dudler's architectural concept is based on museum display: an outer shell that protects the precious content within. The functions of the library are organised around this idea, producing a quiet, weather-resistant volume that frames the historic courtyard while giving the university a contemporary place for study and research.