Vacant buildings are nothing new, especially in large cities. But what to do? Demolish or repurpose? Using the criminal justice center in Munich as an example, the VerhandelBar project – with the involvement of the public – has shown initiative.
The VerhandelBar in Maxvorstadt, Munich. Credit: Christian Illing
The Criminal Justice Center on Nymphenburger Straße in Munich was built in 1972-1977. It houses the criminal divisions of the Munich Local Court and the Munich Regional Courts I and II. From 2025, the entire Justice Center will move to a new building on Leonrodplatz. This automatically raises the question: what will happen to the existing building? The Free State of Bavaria, which owns the building, has been considering whether a new building or demolition would make sense.
The Justice Center in Munich. Credit: Fritz Bielmeier
Demolition and vacancy
At the beginning of 2023, the initiative JustizzentrumErhalten/AbrissAbriss was founded to campaign for the preservation of the building. Together with ARCH+ and the PointOfNOReturn collective as part of Public Art Munich, the artistic-architectural intervention VerhandelBar was created in Munich’s Maxvorstadt district. The Munich collective PointOfNoReturn dedicated itself to the design and construction of the VerhandelBar on the green strip between Sandstraße, Josef-Ruederer-Straße and Dachauerstraße. The core of their work is the negotiation of demolition and vacancy as an ecological and social problem.
In spring 2024, the OpenCall was launched by the initiative JustizzentrumErhalten under the slogan “AbbrechenAbbrechen”. The aim was to collect unconventional, bold and experimental ideas of all kinds for the future of the building. Whether written, architectural, graphic or audiovisual. Everything was welcome, from poems to audio files and drawings to videos. A total of 120 works were collected and evaluated in a public jury session.
This was followed by a shortlist of 30 works and finally 13 prize winners were awarded. The initiative was supported by the Maxvorstadt and Neuhausen district committees as well as foundations such as the Trias Foundation, the Edith Haberland Wagner Foundation and the Architekturkulturstiftung.
These can be seen at the following link: verhandel-bar.de/event/121-ideen-fuer-das-strafjustizzentrum/