The first model of a Documentation Center that was supposed to be a "new landmark"

In the mid-1990s, plans picked up momentum for a Documentation Center, to be headed by the Municipal Museums' then-Director Franz Sonnenberger, that would stay open all year round at Nuremberg's Congress Hall. Sonnenberger promoted his project with an architectural model. An exhibition pavilion would serve as an entryway to spaces inside the Congress Hall, and a tower, reminiscent of the beacon tower that had stood there from 1933 onward, would provide a landmark. The startup financing for further planning came from the publisher and editor of the "Nürnberger Nachrichten" newspaper, Bruno Schnell.