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
208 Archive Buildings for example, not be placed close to a river in order to avoid additional costs for protection against floods. The researchers and visitors should be able to reach the archives easily using public transport. On the other hand, a place downtown might not be advisable because of air pollution: If the repositories are surrounded by streets with heavy traffic, the air for them should pass through special filters. A very important argument in favour of or against a site is the possibility of later enlargement of the archive building. In most cases it will not be possible for the archivist to achieve a building with a reserve (especially for the stack room area) covering the needs for more than about twenty years. This means that, within the limits of the site, additional construction should be possible according to later needs. From the architect’s point of view these limits are extremely important. Very often the maximum number of floors or the total height of a building on a certain site is reguláted and cannot be exceeded. The archive building in any case should correspond to the buildings surrounding it. At any rate the ground, on which the foundation of the building will be placed, has to be examined. The new building for the Bundesarchiv will be located on the so-called: Karthause, a plateau about 170 metres above sea-level and about 110 metres above the old part of Koblenz, between the Mosel and the Éhein valleys close to the hills of the Hunsrück. It is placed about 3 kilometres southwest from downtown Koblenz in a large newly developed area. It will be built on an area of about 21.000 square metres, with an additional 13.500 square metres available for extensions (see plate 1). It seems to be certain that, with regard to the building-site, all needs of the Bundesarchiv can be met for at least the next fifty years. 3.3 Following the regulations and procedures in the Federal Republic of Germany, an estimate of the costs has to be drawn up on the basis of the decisions described above. Because this estimate has to indicate the money necessary in certain budget years, it has to include a first draft of the schedule for construction. This schedule should indicate the progress of the construction in detail. It has to be updated whenever necessary, and it can be used by the archivist to understand and control the status of work. The calculation is a task for an architect, who need not necessarily be the architect to plan the later building. In West-Germany this estimate of the costs for federal buildings is done by an agency, which is in charge of all federal buildings in certain regions, the so-called Staatsbauamt: an architect and several specialists in that office will be involved in summarizing the prospective costs. They have to rely on the list of rooms (described in chapter 3.2.1) and other data from the archivist. At this point it is necessary to explain and describe on a rather general level the tasks of an archive, to indicate the special requirements for the repositories, the laboratories or the rooms for the public. It took about twelve months to complete the calculation of the costs and to
