2025

auf Anfrage zugänglich

Bildungscampus Neufreimann, Friederike-Nadig-Allee 42, 46, 48, Henny-Seidemann-Straße 19-21, 80393 München

Stahlrohr, jeweils zweifarbig lackiert,
Blaue Skulptur: 200 × 437 × 808 cm
Rote Skulptur: 240 × 330 × 450 cm

Architecture: a+r Architekten, Stuttgart

Landscape architecture: Glück Landschaftsarchitektur, Stuttgart

Photos: Peter Schinzler

Text: Prof. Dr. Bernhart Schwenk

The artworks are called “clouds”. Both “clouds” float in airy staircase foyer spaces, one in a primary school, the other in a high school. Each “cloud” consists of lattice structures composed of colorfully painted steel tubes. In a streamlined manner, they reproduce two characteristic cloud formations; the object in the elementary school is reminiscent of the classic, compact cumulus, the cloud that is most familiar to us when drawing clouds. When regarding the “cloud” in the high school, one might recall a veil cloud, also known as cirrostratus. In nature, this cloud formation consists of ice crystals and can occur in parallel layers, moving across the sky in bands.

The colors of the abstract “clouds” reflect and reinforce the architectural color concept of the two school buildings. Accordingly, the “cloud” in the elementary school is painted in a raspberry red, complemented by a fire engine red on its underside. The “cloud” in the high school, in contrast, is painted in a bright ultramarine blue that becomes a dark midnight blue on its bottom. The geometric “clouds” form a kind of sky in the stairwells for students, teachers, and guests, lending the rooms an airy, light, and floating sensation and creating a play of light and shadow. The artworks also reflect the cubic volumes of the two school buildings and the block structure of the newly developed neighborhood. They thus respond to the proportions of the stairwells, their generously dimensioned atria, and their surroundings.

At the same time, both “clouds” also have figurative significance. Cloud imagery also exists in our language. We can be “on cloud nine,” or “fall out of thin air,” our world is populated by “skyscrapers” and “castles in the air.” Poets and philosophers also frequently employ cloud imagery. More than 200 years ago, Friedrich Schiller wrote in his poem “Die Gunst des Augenblicks” (The Favor of the Moment): “It must fall from the clouds, from the lap of the gods, happiness…” Younger observers are likely to associate the term “cloud” primarily with digital knowledge storage – and with the (often blind) confidence that all knowledge is “in the cloud.” The idea may also arise that ubiquitous access to stored knowledge not only supports learning but may even make it superfluous. But can we really rely on it forever?

In any event, knowledge cannot be stored in in these cloud structures, for they are neither virtual data structures nor analog vessels. Nor are they the ‘real’ clouds we know from nature. In a tongue-in-cheek manner, they use visual means to represent their own reality – art, in other words, and they suggest that in the future, schools will remain equally connected to both digital and analog realities, where imagination and creativity will always be in demand.