Ingolstadt Village is inspired by the European textile mills and industrial estates built in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. The project is based on a founding myth of being the conversion of a historic textile mill in central Bavaria having been repurposed as a specialty retail center.

Ingolstadt Village maintains its industrial legibility while successfully functioning as a retail center. Subtle changes of scale soften the factory-like repetition of forms and picturesquely compose seemingly accidental intersections of industrial elements.

The project’s location near warehouses and a refinery north of Munich necessitated romanticizing the industrial style.  To this end, the design team was inspired by historic German industrial buildings such as Peter Behrens’s red brick Faber Technical Administration Building in Frankfurt and the creamy white Jugendstil style Waterpower station in Westphalia.  

The workman like industrial buildings were then in turn softened by applying decorative patterns designed by the artist Maria Wolf that are suggestive of the textiles to be sold in Ingolstadt Village’s many apparel stores. Overall, the project feels perfectly grounded in its unique location, as the design tells a layered story of the site’s transition from industrial to community use. 

JRDV also designed the streetscape plan including paving and landscaping, that reinforced the project’s founding myth.  

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200,000 GSF / 20,000m2
Mixed Use Retail, Restaurants, Offices

Year:
1998-2009

Client:
Value Retail, Developer

Team:
JRDV Urban International, Lead Architect and Master Planner
ATP, Munich, Architect of Record
Maria Wolf, Phase 1 Graphics
Stantec, Environmental Graphics