Opel Headquarters
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Exterior of Opel Headquarters
Dennis Gilbert/View Download Original
German headquarters of automative manufacturer Opel, including office building and masterplan for adjacent visitor centre
Planned as two parallel office buildings joined by a central atrium, BDP’s Opel Headquarters accommodates around 1250 staff. The front block peels away at an angle of 45 degrees in order to present an open embrace to the main site entrance. This is to be matched, opposite, by a visitor attraction containing an auditorium, café and outdoor amphitheatre.
Staff access is provided via a first floor link bridging the site’s access road; visitors and staff alike enter via the visitor building, an idea Opel hopes will encourage non-hierarchical openness within the workplace.
Internally, escalators ascend the six-storey height of the building in a grand sweep along the length of the central atrium. Below, the atrium provides a showroom for Opel’s latest models, with further models exhibited on artificial lake islands visible through south facing glazing.
BDP’s palette of materials: profiled metal cladding, grey granite and limestone flooring, reflects the black, grey and yellow colours of Opel’s logo.
Data
- Begun: Feb 1996
- Completed: Sep 1997
- Sectors: Office, Landscape design, Master-planning
- Total cost: £151M
- Address: Adam Opel Haus, Rüsselsheim, 65423, Germany
Professional Team 
- Architect: BDP
- Project architects: Chris Langston, Ingrid Brook-Barnett, Jane Hymas, Paul Foster, Peter Greiner, Peter Mulrenan, Philip Ball, Stewart Nicholson, Tim Williams
- Client: Adam Opel AG
- Landscape architect: BDP
- Space planner: BDP
- Environmental engineer: BDP
- Structural engineer: BDP
- Cost consultant: BDP
- Developer: Roland Ernst
- Project Support Opel: Hartz Nasedy Team
- Project manager: N + S
- Electrical engineer : TP Elektroplan
- Mechanical engineer: Petterson and Ahrend
- Structural engineer: Harries and Kurpiela
- Main contractor: ARGE Hauptverwaltung
Suppliers
- Facades: Gebr.Schneider GmbH and CoKG
- Floor plates: Hacker
- Steel construction: Mostostal
- Escalators: Thyssen Lifts & Escalators
