Originally built by local architect Hermann Schneider in 1906/07, the building was comprehensively redesigned and extended by Egon Eiermann in 1938/1939 for use as a fire extinguisher factory for the ‘Total AG Foerstner & Co’. Today it is an exemplary specimen of modernist architecture and industrial building design, and is the only built legacy of the work of the architect Egon Eiermann in Thuringia.
The building was originally a yarn, weaving and knitting factory for ‘Borgmann & Co’. In 1936, the Berlin-based company TOTAL KG Foerstner & Co. purchased the site on the Auenstraße and commissioned the then little-known architect Egon Eiermann to extend the existing building in a contemporary, modern manner. Until the mid-1990s, the building served as a factory for the production of fire extinguishers. The last owner Apoldaer Feuerlöschgeräte GmbH ceased production in 1994.
Despite being designated a listed monument in 1992, the inevitable deterioration of the building was first halted through the efforts of the Friends of the Eiermannbau Association, founded in 1999. The association used the building for an exhibition of the life and work of Egon Eiermann until 2010, and then the corner building until 2012. In 2004, ownership of the Eiermannbau was transferred to the Sächsische Grundstücksanierungsgesellschaft (SGSG). Various single-storey production buildings, workshops and garages on the northern part of the site were demolished in 2004/2005, and the industrialist’s villa on the Auenstraße restored to its former form. In 2009, the Chair for Building Conservation and History of Architecture at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar ran the 4th student workshop of the German National Committee for Building Conservation (DNK) on the Eiermannbau, giving new impetus to securing the long-term future of the listed monument.
From November 2010 to December 2011, the new owners, the Gesellschaft zur Sanierung und Entwicklung von Altstandorten (GESA) undertook extensive renovation measures taking into account conservation requirements. Despite numerous attempts to find a new permanent use, the building has nevertheless remained vacant to the present day.
In 2014, the Eiermannbau was designated an IBA Thüringen Initiative Project location. The two-week international IBA Campus in June 2016 and the subsequent IBA LeerGut Conference held in the Eiermannbau marks the beginning of an IBA initiative to redevelop the location. Working together with the project partners, the GESA and the town of Apolda, the IBA Thüringen aims to develop a long-term, sustainable concept for the future use of the industrial monument by the end of the IBA Thüringen period in 2023.
