Big stage set against Alpine panorama - TW TagungsWirtschaft

Kongress Palais Kassel
The colonnade annex with
1,900 square meters of
technology and event-staging
space on the top floor and
sixfold partitionable 1,000
sqms of space on the ground
floor raise the center’s capacity
to approximately 8,000
square meters. This corresponds
to an increase in capacity
by 60 per cent. Management
is convinced that
this size and flexibility is what
it takes to be geared for future
operations.
Kassel’s lord mayor Bertram
Hilgen is convinced that expansion
of the Kongress Palais
both in terms of size and
function considerably increases
the city’s quality and
attractiveness as convention
and congress venue. He’s delighted
that the harmonious
annex is yet another architectural
landmark in Kassel, a city
renowned as center of culture
and art.
City treasurer Dr. Jürgen Barthel,
at the same time also
chairman of the supervisory
board of Kassel Marketing
und Tagungszentrum Stadthalle
Kassel (TSK), considers
the city’s central location in
Germany, the good traffic infrastructure
as well as the
outstanding price/benefit ratio
to be major assets and
guarantors of success for the
new colonnades annex.
The first major event to be
staged here in late August of
this year will be the Solar
World Congress. “The colonnade
annex is a major milestone
for the Kongress Palais’s
sustainability. It was a
great challenge on all involved
parties to build and
ready the annex on schedule
in a very short period of time.
Winter came early last year,
and that required a lot of extra
work to keep the schedule.
On top of all that, there were a
number of huge boulders that
had to be cleared from the
grounds, and they weighed
up to 42 tons,“ said Peter Ley,
general manager of GWG and
TSK, which is in charge of
building management.
“We arrived at the decision to
build the annex to the Kongress
Palais also on the basis
of experiences made in other
cities. Only event venues
meeting minimum size requirements
will have a fair
chance in this competitive
market,“ said Angelika
Hüppe, deputy director of
Kassel Marketing. The annex
will meet the needs of established
clientele organizing
major events.
This clientele also includes
the organizers Animexx and
Inline. “In addition, we have
more than 100 events on
hold, and our expanded capacity
will enable us to work
off that backlog as well,“ said
Hüppe. Management ex-
4/2011 39
pects to double sales now
that the annex is in operation.
The Kongress Palais now has
capacities in terms of space,
equipment, and services
meeting the rising demands
and needs of event organizers.
The expansion design is
based upon the winning entry
of an architectural competi-
GERMANY
Milestone for sustainability
Increased
attractiveness
Capacities of the historic, almost 100-year-old Kongress
Palais Kassel have finally been expanded; the new colon-
nades annex built in the course of one year was officially
inaugurated on Tuesday, August 16, 2011.
tion staged in 2009. The responsible
architect Prof.
Alexander Reichel pointed
out that his draft design of the
building was characterized by
the adaptation of function to
the topographical situation at
the building site, which led to
an exciting togetherness of
old and new construction
forms. KA