Kinder­oase

A gap site becomes an event

Diagonally opposite the clock tower of the TUM main building, at Gabelsbergerstraße 41, a gap site had yawned since the Second World War. Since the summer of 2026, a front of rust-red, gently folded slats juts out there — "as if it were puffing out its chest at the neighbouring buildings", as the SZ puts it. At the very top sits a round timber structure with an overhanging roof, like a crown; at night the illuminated front bay glows from within. Behind it hides neither a gallery nor a corporate headquarters, but a childcare centre for up to 60 children of members of the Technical University of Munich: the "Kinderoase" — 700 square metres across five storeys.

Ground was broken on 18 April 2024; on 7 July 2026 the donor Ingeborg Pohl handed the finished house over to TUM. Operation begins in September 2026 with the new childcare year.

The architect: Francis Kéré

The design is by Diébédo Francis Kéré (b. 1965 in Gando, Burkina Faso) — probably the most prominent name ever to appear on a Munich childcare building permit. Kéré was the first child of his village to attend school, trained as a carpenter, came to Germany on a scholarship and studied architecture at the TU Berlin. While still a student, he built his home village's first school with donations he collected himself — of clay, passively cooled, erected by the village community. It won him the Aga Khan Award in 2004; buildings such as the Serpentine Pavilion in London (2017) and projects from the Goethe-Institut in Dakar to Benin's new National Assembly followed. In 2022 he became the first African architect to receive the Pritzker Prize, architecture's highest honour. At the same time Kéré — who holds German citizenship alongside his Burkinabè one — joins a short German line-up: only two German architects had won the Pritzker Prize before him, Gottfried Böhm (1986), the master of exposed-concrete churches, and Frei Otto (2015), creator of Munich's Olympic Stadium roof. Kéré is the third.

Two ties lead him to Munich: his practice Kéré Architecture is based in Berlin, and since 2017 he has held the Chair of Architectural Design and Participation at TUM. The Kinderoase is his first Munich building — and, according to TUM, his first permanent building in Europe altogether. At his side: Hermann Kaufmann from Schwarzach in Vorarlberg, former TUM professor and one of Europe's leading timber architects (German Architecture Prize 2017), whose office HK Architekten was responsible for the detailed design of the timber structure. The donor was represented by Munich architect Antony Groß of the GAPP office, who steered the creative ideas through planning permission and project management — with tailwind, as he stresses, from the city's planning director Elisabeth Merk and her building commission.

Timber behind Corten steel

The house is a rigorous timber building: apart from the basement and the external escape staircase, no concrete was used. Walls, ceiling beams and window frames are spruce, stairs and parquet are ash — you can smell the wood in every room. The street front is a façade of folded Corten-steel slats whose earthy rust tone will keep developing its patina; the set-back ground floor glows in a brighter shade of rust. The core of the building is a round stairwell, 20.8 metres high and 5.5 metres across: yellow walls, lamps shaped like clouds, moon and stars — an idea of the donor's. All rooms nestle around this cylinder.

A vertical playground

"We designed the Kinderoase entirely from the children's perspective," says Kéré. "We created a vertical play space in which they can run, climb and slide from one floor to the next." In the street-side annex — the architects call it the "rucksack" — two custom-made wooden slides connect the levels. Curved cloakrooms with a "secret passage" for the children, play kitchens and furniture all in wood, bathrooms with round mirrors and a consistent colour scheme: the house is designed down to the last detail. Those who work their way to the very top reach the "Himmelswiese" roof terrace ("sky meadow"), also meant for play behind a high parapet — with views across the University Quarter.

Donor, operation, context

The house was financed — and given to the public — by the patron Ingeborg Pohl, TUM Honorary Senator and founding benefactor of the TUM University Foundation: "With this Kinderoase, my wish to support high-performing women in balancing career and family comes true." What the building cost she will not say. From September 2026 it will be run by the Munich Student Union (Studierendenwerk München Oberbayern). To the objection that this is a "luxury Kita" for a privileged milieu, project manager Groß replies: "This is an architectural jewel with great appeal for Munich."

In architectural-history terms, the Kinderoase continues the most recent era of Maxvorstadt's building history: after the great museum buildings of the Kunstareal, it is the first world-class new building in the heart of the quarter — and a signal for sustainable inner-city timber construction.