In June 2016, Munich and Berlin headquartered Siemens moved into the new Siemens building at the Wittelsbacherplatz. On Friday, August 5, 2016 the City of Munich’s official website at muenchen.de reported about the fate of the old Siemens headquarters building at the Baierbrunner Straße in Munich-Obersendling. The building is going to be turned into an apartment building by Munich’s Isarbau AG. The building was built in 1962 and is a work of Munich architect Hans Maurer.

The apartment building is going to be named South One, as it is will be the first high-rise building in Germany is you are coming to the county from the south. The 75 metres and 22-storey tall building is currently empty. It is planned for it to be completely turned into an apartment building with 270 apartments within five years from now. The appearance of the building will heavily lean on what the building looks now. Next to the apartments, the building will also house a kindergarten and various shops. The new design for the building comes from MEILI, PETER ARCHITEKTEN. Below is what they say about the project.

The ensemble around the Siemens high-rise building was originally planned and implemented by the architect Hans Maurer in the 1950s and is now to be converted into a new residential and work area following the conveyance of the site. The aim of our work was to work out a concept for the implementation of the intended residential usage into the existing tower block in such a way that the rules of the historic building fabric – both in the interior and in the external impression of the building – are respected and the building is reactivated as a vital component of the new residential area.

Thanks to a conscious modification of the load-bearing structure, we were able not only meet the latest fire safety requirements but also to compress the access zone and design it so flexibly that the residential typology can be adapted sensitively according to the location within the building and to the orientation. Using a new transverse housing typology, the number of purely north-facing units can be decisively reduced.

For the new façade, despite the integration of private free areas, we wanted to retain the genes of the original façade and thus the character and style of the building. The new façade therefore takes up the previous building’s expression with its rigour and straightforwardness. Deep vertical façade profiles, together with the horizontal storeys, form the new yet systematically unchanged, superordinate structure of the façade. The new floor-to-ceiling glazing on the one hand takes the special living situation in the tower block into account, and on the other, gives the building a new, elegant proportion. The openings for the inward-facing loggias are overlaid by the structure of the façade grid pattern and appear as shimmering disturbances in the pattern of the new, old dress.