Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 39. (1986)
Archive Buildings and the Conservation of Archival Material. An Expert Meeting, held in Vienna, Austria October 30 - November 1, 1985 - BUCHMANN, Wolf: Planning an Archive Building. The Cooperation between Architect and Archivist
Planning an Archive Building 203 Files and registers: Maps, plans, technical drawings: Photographs: Posters: Sound recordings: Microfilms: Documentary and feature films: 91,8 km of shelving (52,2 km of them in intermediate record centers at Bonn and Freiburg) 325.000 items 2,6 million items 16.000 items 6.400 items 219.000 metres 44.816 films consisting of about 260.000 rolls. At present the number of staff members is approximately 350: 68 of whom are archivists with professional training. The budget of the Bundesarchiv amounts to 22,000.000 DM. The organisation of the Bundesarchiv comprises four divisions, three of them operating at Koblenz. The new building will house these three divisions with about 200 staff members. Another new archive building for the division in charge of military records at Freiburg is still in the stage of preparatory planning, it might be completed in about eight to ten years. The necessity and urgent need for a new purpose built archive has been evident to the archivists in the Bundesarchiv for more than ten years. The decision about the new building could not be made only by the archivists in cooperation with the architect. The Federal Minister of the Interior, to whom the Bundesarchiv has to report, had to be convinced first. In 1975 the acting Minister, Prof. Dr Maihofer, accepted the arguments of the Bundesarchiv and asked the archivists to begin the first steps of the planning procedure. This was not the final approval for the building, but from that date on the Bundesarchiv was authorized to draw up (in cooperation with an architect) the papers and plans necessary to achieve the consent of the other ministries involved. The subject of this paper is therefore not limited to the cooperation between the architect and the archivist. For the general decision as well as for most of the details of the planning, the construction of the building and its installations and equipment, the archivist will find himself having to deal with many officials. The most important authorities he has to cooperate with, are the architect and the political decisionmakers: Archives (Bundesarchiv) Architect (Staatsbauamt Koblenz Nord) Political authorities (Deutscher Bundestag, Bundesminister des Inneren, Bundesminister für Finanzen, Bundesminister für Raumordnung, Bauwesen und Städtebau)
