Atelier Kempe Thill

In the spring of 2004, Atelier Kempe Thill won the two-stage international competition for a new 700-bed youth hostel in the 4.5-kilometer-long former Nazi sea hotel in Prora, Germany. The building is a monument of modernism and regarded as one of the few realized linear cities.

The design took the original intentions of the architect Clemens Klotz as a starting point, improving on them where necessary or even enhancing them. The special characteristics of Prora, like the enormous length or the stoic window rhythm, were interpreted as positive qualities. Some of the original parts, like the “rue intérieure,” were restored.