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Extension to the Nietzsche Archive - Martin Henchion
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People least acquainted with philosophy are still familiar with the name Nietzsche. Indeed, this is the problem which the Nietzsche Archive is trying to address: because of the particularly quotable nature of much of Nietzsche's writings, he has been used to support arguments which he would have abhorred in real life. Much of the work of the Nietzsche Archive is to return study to the original documentation.

Our proposal for the additional accommodation required to continue this work was for simple concrete box, two storeys over basement. The plan form ignores existing plot divisions but strengthens an unclear street corner and creates a garden to join the two houses on Weingartenstrasse now used by the archive.
The accommodation includes a caf� and exhibition on the ground floor, offices and a lecture theatre on the first floor and archive storage in the basement.
The external walls of in-situ concrete were to have a bush hammered finish. While the scale of the proposal is consistent with the neighbouring buildings, the building form and finishes clearly separate it from its 17th/18th century context.
The jury considered that it achieved this too well!

In a letter to a friend dated July 29th 1888 Nietzsche wrote:
'It is absolutely unnecessary, and not even desirable, for you to argue in my favour; on the contrary, a dose of curiosity, as if you were looking at an alien planet with ironic distance, would strike me as an incomparably more intelligent attitude toward me.'