After the BGZ building has been in existence for ten years, Managing Director Wolfgang Selig reveals whether the expectations associated with the new building on Karl-Lederer-Platz have been fulfilled.
Geretsried – Ten years ago, the building cooperative completed its largest single building project to date with the BGZ.
She invested around 13 million euros in the striking residential and commercial building on the corner of Egerlandstrasse and Karl-Lederer-Platz.
In an interview, BG Managing Director Wolfgang Selig reveals whether the expectations associated with the new building have been fulfilled.
Mr. Selig, the BGZ was the largest single construction project in the history of the cooperative.
Was that the right decision?
Yes absolutely.
It was the right decision at the right time.
We're glad we implemented it.
Our expectations have been met.
The architecture of the building project was not without controversy.
Some citizens found the building to be an unsightly block.
During the construction phase there was a lot of criticism of the architecture, that's true.
But four to six weeks after the opening, that has subsided.
The building was filled with life.
Are there still critical words today?
Today I very rarely hear criticism from Geretsrieders who have been here for a long time.
In other words, criticism is probably not the right word at all, rather a kind of melancholy after the post-war architecture.
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Wolfgang Selig has been managing director of the building cooperative for 16 years.
Photo: archive
How did the building fit into the city center?
Without the municipal measures carried out at the same time, in my opinion the building would only have fit in to a limited extent.
By moving the street directly in front of the BGZ, relocating and expanding the fountain and redesigning the surface coverings, the city strongly supported the integration.
What impetus
did that give?
We have achieved three things with the building: The large urban planning interruption of the ground floor shop areas between the west side of Egerlandstraße Nord and Egerlandstraße Süd was massively shortened.
The two parts of the street now tend to merge, at least on this side of the street.
The connection from Egerlandstraße to Karl-Lederer-Platz, which has always been a good solution on the south side, has now been linked to C & A and Café Waldmann in terms of urban planning for the first time.
Before that there were only ground floor apartments.
And a small alterations shop that fortunately survived the forced move.
Through C & A, Waldmann and the Rossmann drugstore, the frequency in the center has also increased significantly for other tradespeople.
As far as I know, everyone benefited from this, even the competitors, since the additional visitors to Karl-Lederer-Platz at least compensated for the additional competition, and often even overcompensated for it.
Is the BGZ the basis for planning for BGZ 2, which will be built on Egerlandstraße?
As far as the basic urban planning idea is concerned: in many parts yes.
Instead of apartments, we want shops and restaurants on the ground floor.
In other matters, the BGZ 2 is completely independent.
This affects, among other things, the publicly usable parking spaces in the basement, the large elevators between the basement and the first floor as well as the facade and lighting concept.
The architecture is independent, but similar to the BGZ is no longer based on the Geretsrieder post-war architecture with its gabled roofs.
In the meantime, the BGZ is no longer a solitaire.
With the conversion of the Deimer house ("Ernsting's Family", editor's note) and KLP 9, structural changes have already taken place in the center.
With "Centrum 20", "Puls G" and the large central underground car park, construction is currently underway again at Karl-Lederer-Platz.
We no longer see the BGZ 2 as a solitaire as much as the BGZ, which was designed by Thomas Hammer, used to be.
With the office of Kehrbaum Architekten, we have an independent planner for BGZ 2.
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