There is a great deal of value to how far mankind and civilization has managed to create beautiful industrial architecture structures and industrial interior design, all reflecting their own individual style and inspiration of the architect behind them.

Industrial architecture is a field that has also evolved to combine functionality and design and reveal impressive construction worthy of admiration and recognition.

Buildings from around the world focusing not only on its main goal of housing a production line also garnered attention because of their design.

Since then, and even in this day and age, veritable works of art have been created by exceptional industrial architects.

Reviewing the most recognized beacons of industrial architecture is a study in daring the imagination to run wild while allowing productivity, culture and the environment to influence the final designs.

Modern industrial architecture examples

  • Inotera Headquarters & Production Facility by tec Design Studio
  • Kangan Batman Institute by Lyons
  • Helicopter Building by Stephane Maupin & Nicolas Hugon
  • Bio Mass Power Plant by Matteo Thun & Partners
  • Cabel Industry by Massimo Mariani
  • Chateau Cheval Blanc Winer by Christian de Portzamparc
  • Campo Viejo Winery by Ignacio Quemada Arquitectos
  • Chayi Industrial Innovation Center by Bio-architecture formosana
  • Cloudy Bay Winery by Tonkin Zulaikha Greer Architects + Paul Rolfe Architects
  • Confectionery Factory Roshen by Yunakov Architects
  • Gas Kompressor Station Egtved by C. F. Møller Architects
  • GH Genhelix Biopharmaceutical Facilities by estudioSIC
  • Glacial Water Bottling Plant by Panorama
  • La Face Cachée de La Pomme by Fournier Gersovitz Moss Drolet et Associés Architectes
  • Metalsa by Brooks + Scarpa Architects
  • Oloron Saint Marie Multimedia Center by Pascale Guédot + Michel Corajoud
  • Production Hall Hettingen by Barkow Leibinger, Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger
  • Urban Solid Waste Collection Central by Vaillo + Irigaray
  • Water Treatment Plant by AWP
  • Wilo by Benthem Crouwel Architects
  • Zahner Factory Expansion by Crawford Architects

Now let’s look at them in detail.

Inotera Headquarters & Production Facility by tec Design Studio

The all glass façade, typical for standard office buildings, is reinterpreted in light of Taiwan’s tradition of tile construction. Technology is thus explored in order to emulate cultural values and environmental aspects within a contemporary context.

Kangan Batman Institute by Lyons

The new Automotive Centre of Excellence (ACE) in Melbourne’s Docklands accommodates a dedicated training and showcase facility for Australia’s automotive trades and manufacturing. It consists of high-bay workshop spaces, specialist workrooms, classrooms and office accommodation.

Helicopter Building by Stephane Maupin & Nicolas Hugon

The building is located on the fringe of Paris city, at ‘Porte de la Villette’, an area where the urban fabric dissolves into heterogeneous industrial infrastructures.

Surrounded between Paris ring road, train tracks, factories, and social housings, we were inspired by the brutality of this collage where concrete pillars clashes with raw metal, gravels collides with noisy train sounds…a mineral and raw atmosphere..

Bio Mass Power Plant by Matteo Thun & Partners

The Schilling Power Station together with the nearby sawmill, turn the woodburning cycle into something genuinely virtuous: waste products from the sawmill in the form of bark and wood chips become combustible biomass serving the power station. In turn, the power station generates energy in the form of heat to cover the sawmill’s energy requirements. This completes the circle, and that would be enough in its own right.

Cabel Industry by Massimo Mariani

Just out the edge of the town of Empoli, the building is the Cabel headquarters (a company dealing in computer systems for banks), it covers an area of approximately 4.500 square metres and it is incorporated on the local industrial estate.

Chateau Cheval Blanc Winer by Christian de Portzamparc

In this vineyard shaped by man over the centuries, the architect envisioned a winery shaped like a belvedere projecting out from the château and opening onto the beautiful landscape.

Based on discussions with the director of the Château, Pierre Lurton, who has extensive experience of wine-making in concrete vats, much appreciated at Cheval Blanc, the architect designed a curved vat shaped like a tasting glass to optimize oxygenation.

Campo Viejo Winery by Ignacio Quemada Arquitectos

The Campo Viejo Winery lies on a plateau on the River Ebro valley, the Rad de Santa Cruz, which is covered by 37 hectares of undulating vineyards with marvellous views in all directions.

Chayi Industrial Innovation Center by Bio-architecture formosana

The site is located in sub-tropical climate zone characterized by its hot and humid weather. According to this, the strategy of this project emphasizes the utilization of the natural resources in this climate condition. The adopted methods include solar energy, rainwater reuse, and an outdoor temperature cooling mechanism via the setting of the micro-climate.

Cloudy Bay Winery by Tonkin Zulaikha Greer Architects + Paul Rolfe Architects

Cloudy Bay Shack establishes the connection between the image on the wine label and the direct experience of the vineyard. They shaped the building to gain vistas along the vineyards to the Richmond Ranges, whose silhouette adorns each bottle.

Confectionery Factory Roshen by Yunakov Architects

Confectionery factory Roshen is not just a leading manufacturer of confectionary products in former Soviet Union, but also a pioneer to introduce advanced European experience, both into production and in administration sphere of activity. And it concerns not only an internal content of the company, but its external manifestations as well.

Gas Kompressor Station Egtved by C. F. Møller Architects

The new Energinet.dk compressor station at Egtved is Denmark’s first installation of its kind. C.F. Møller has designed the plant, consisting of four compressor units and service buildings, as an architectural feature in the open landscape.

GH Genhelix Biopharmaceutical Facilities by estudioSIC

The biopharmaceutical facilities, first antibody monoclonal manufacturing plant built in Spain, is the expression of the complex inner manufacturing processes of the product: a technological, efficient and sustainable solution.

Glacial Water Bottling Plant by Panorama

The project was built in 4 months. The process consists of bottled glacial water. The building that contains the process is a box 18 by 18 meters and 6 meters high. The four facades are clad in toughened glass with a black opaque coating with a tapered soil base.

La Face Cachée de La Pomme by Fournier Gersovitz Moss Drolet et Associés Architectes

In 2001, Pouliot and Beaudoin wanted to expand and renovate the ancestral house and their small cidery situated in the orchard; they contacted Giovanni Diodati, architect with FGMDA.

Metalsa by Brooks + Scarpa Architects

Industrial buildings of this type are rarely a model for workplace innovation. They are typically a direct, and often nefarious programmatic response to the function inside with little consideration for the occupants needs. The approach to this project was to preserve the integrity of a high bay industrial facility and program, while providing a model environment for the users and visitors.

Oloron Saint Marie Multimedia Center by Pascale Guédot + Michel Corajoud

Situated in Oloron Saint Marie, the site is part of a larger urban renewal project intended to reconnect the abandoned site to the center of the city and infuse a new spirit into the building while reclaiming the site’s natural setting.

Production Hall Hettingen by Barkow Leibinger, Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger

Trumpf GmbH the world largest manufacturer of high tech machine tools will be expanding their existing branch factory near the village of Hettingen in the Swabian Alb. Situated in a picturesque valley this will be the second addition undertaken by Barkow Leibinger the first (shops and offices of 1500 sqm.) was done in 2009.

Urban Solid Waste Collection Central by Vaillo + Irigaray

A CUSWC is a clean building: a building is able to coexist with other uses of a city is not a building that has to hide: but most of them are factory buildings, industrial, “blind”, insensitive to environment.

Water Treatment Plant by AWP

The Évry water depuration plant is a major infrastructural element that is at once symbolic and highly functional, reflecting environmental, technical and urban considerations.

Wilo by Benthem Crouwel Architects

Wilo Nederland’s core business in manufacturing water pumps inspired the design of this company building: a tubular volume wrapped by a welded aluminum facade and a spectacular sloping cantilever above the water. The building is one of the first developments in the Hoogtij business park in Westzanerpolder.

Zahner Factory Expansion by Crawford Architects

Zahner’s continuing success as one of the world’s foremost architectural metal manufacturers prompted the need for an expansion of their manufacturing facility at 8th and Paseo Blvd. in Kansas City, Missouri.

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