Bremerhaven Climate House 8° East

The building is located in the city's harbour, in the area known as Havenwelten (Port Worlds), a commercial, cultural and leisure area. It covers an area of about 18,800 m², of which 11,500 m² are dedicated to the exhibition itself. It is a modern construction of free geometry, whose shape is reminiscent of a whale, with a length of 125 m and a width of 82 m. It consists of two complementary bodies: the outer layer covered with more than 4,000 dark panes is supported by a structure based on steel beams and a concrete body.

The interior decoration is also modern and functional. Free spaces and forms predominate: the concepts of floors, ceilings and walls lose their meaning to give way to a continuous space formed by sections or galleries and connected by stairs and ramps. Apart from the exhibition area, the building houses a shop, a café, a restaurant, the administrative offices, a media library and the technical areas.
Participants in the project were architect Thomas Klumpp and his team (design), as well as the firms Petri & Tiemann (concept and technical support), agn Niederberghaus & Partner (construction) and Kunstraum Gfk mbH (design and decoration of the exhibition). The amount of the investment was approximately 70 million euros, partly from public funds promoted by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology and partly from European funds.

The exhibition is divided into four thematic sections: Chancen, Perspektiven, Elemente and Reise (Opportunities, Perspectives, The Elements and The Journey) which, although complementary, are designed to be visited independently.
Reise ("journey") section: this is the largest of the four (4,800 m² of surface area) and represents the central body of the exhibition. The objective of this section is to follow the journey made by a German explorer along the meridian 8° E (and its part and continuation, the meridian 172° W), starting from the city of Bremerhaven, and passing through nine stations located on this meridian and representing different climatic zones of our planet; it was chosen on the meridian 8° E because it is on which this city is located.

The journey begins at the top of the building and as you walk through the exhibition you gradually descend into what could be called a spiral, the center of which is the end of the first section and is located in the lower part, in front of the building's lobby. Each station contains numerous informative photos and videos and a decoration and atmosphere faithful to the climate zone it represents. Thus, in the desert area, a powerful light with reddish hues and a dry and hot atmosphere are used, in the tropical sections, on the other hand, atmospheric humidifiers are used. The polar region is housed in a thermally insulated chamber with white walls, ceiling and floor, and kept at a temperature below zero. On the other hand, at each station it is the visitor received virtually by a person or a family from that locality who will serve as a host and guide through that journey.
Elemente section ("elements"): outlines how climate and weather interact, how weather phenomena originate, to clarify how the complex total weather system works. In a series of interactive examples, visitors can experiment with the elements fire, earth, water and air to form, for example, miniature storms or volcanic eruptions.
Perspektiven ("perspectives") section: represents how the world's climate has changed over time, starting from the climate in the past to the climate of the present, showing the different periods and climate changes that the Earth has experienced, and making a projection into the future, giving special importance to current global warming, its causes and consequences. This section presents the latest developments in climate change-related research.
Chancen Section: designed to provide visitors with measures to reduce the effects of climate change. Thus, for example, there are a couple of themed cameras where how to reduce CO2 emissions in daily life is shown in the form of a game.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit the Klimahaus or Bremerhaven Climate House, an interactive scientific museum dedicated to the world's climate that I highly recommend visiting if you travel to this small state of Bremen, in northern Germany.
The Klimahaus Bremerhaven consists of four areas: Opportunities, Perspectives, The Elements and The Journey, the latter being undoubtedly the most surprising of all, especially if you visit without any prior expectations.
The Klimahaus Journey occupies an area of 4,800 square meters and offers us a fascinating tour around the world following the 8ºE meridian and its counterpart, the 172ºW meridian.
There are eight stops on this trip: Switzerland, Italy, Niger, Cameroon, Antarctica, Samoa, Alaska and Germany, each of them very well set and with its climates of high mountains, Mediterranean, desert, polar, tundra, etc., perfectly recreated.
At each of the stops, in addition to being very cold or hot depending on the area of the world we are discovering, we will find different activities to do that will give us a lot of information to get to know the planet we inhabit a little better.
For its part, in the area of The Elements, the visitor can experience and play with the four elements, fire, earth, water and air, to understand how natural phenomena such as storms work.
Somewhat less fun, but no less interesting, are the Perspectives and Opportunities areas, in which we are shown the different variations that the climate has suffered in the world throughout history, and we are given some keys to combat climate change.
In this way, the Klimahaus is presented as a hilarious proposal to take into account if you visit this area of Germany. Especially if you are traveling with children, because given the characteristics of the center it seems to have been created especially for them.
The Klimahaus or Bremerhaven Climate House is open every day, from nine or ten in the morning to seven or six in the evening (depending on the time of year). The price of admission for adults is 14 euros, and for children 9.50 euros, although there are very interesting discounts for families.

coro Zambrano