2024

auf Anfrage zugänglich

Haus für Kinder, Annemarie-Renger-Straße 33, 81248 München

Außenbereich: Pflanzenelemente auf Alu Dibond, Hasenskulptur in blau pulverlackierter Bronze; Innenbereich: Pflanzenelemente aus farbig bedrucktem und lackiertem Multiplex, schwebender Hase aus laminiertem Styrodur

Architecture: Ott Architekten, Augsburg

Landscape architecture: Studio B Landschaftsarchitektur, München

Photos: Peter Schinzler

Text: Julia Stellmann

A blue rabbit waits outside the door, guarding the covered entrance area of the Haus für Kinder in Munich, Freiham. With its long spoon-like ears erect, its attentive gaze is directed at the new arrivals. The blueish bronze rabbit sits ready to greet the youngsters, serving as both a reliable protector and a gentle friend. Could it also be that it grants the tots access to another, fantastic world? This novel realm seems to permeate out of the building, sprawling across the boundaries of the enclosed space and taking over the gray of everyday life. Flowers spring up in unusual places, as if born of a vivid imagination, emblazoned on the wood-paneled exterior wall. Dandelions and blowballs entwine with green foliage abutting mundane building details such as letterboxes and doorbell signs. They are reflected in the adjacent glass pane and seem to double in size in view of the opaque border.

The floral elements continue inside, where shoots appear in front of the staircase. The colorful hustle and bustle is evident even through the glass pane, and the narrative outside most likely originates from the interior. Visitors must almost feel like Alice, the young girl who crawled down the rabbit hole and unintentionally fell into Wonderland. Frogs, mice, birds and caterpillars are just a few of the creatures hiding in the plants along the stairwells. These beings seem to engage in mimicry within the yellow, green and blue flowers, leaves and stems. Yet, one animal – a second blue rabbit – has ventured out of hiding and risen up and is now hovering in the space above the dense thicket of plants. Smaller than the sentinel figure outside, this rabbit inspects its immediate surroundings with childlike curiosity and a raised gaze. The gallery at its small feet is reminiscent of the floating leaf of a water lily, which has grown too high and protrudes into the air from the sea of plants, supplying the imaginary root system while simultaneously cutting off all connections. Perhaps the little bunny flew so high because its dreams were so big?

The organic design language of its seemingly suspended protrusion is repeated in the functional seating, which can be used as a monolithic resting place or combined as set pieces. Spread across the waiting area in different sizes, children, parents and care givers can take a seat on the stools. While the children settle in, the adults wait just as the big rabbit does for the little one. Once seated on the curved, sculptural stools, however, the waiting adults may begin to daydream, a bit like bees, which take breaks when collecting nectar, sometimes even falling asleep in flower crowns. The green background is reminiscent of a meadow unfolding beneath the feet of both the children and parents. Meanwhile, the plant tendrils on colorful printed and lacquered multiplex frame those waiting. They seem to take root in their minds and grow out into the world from there.

The artist Veronika Veit is familiar with expansive installations. She is adept at bringing together different individual elements in her well-composed arrangements and allows the audience to become part of her narrative cosmos. Initially focused on the mundane objects of everyday life, for some time now the human being, which previously was only implied, has become the protagonist at the center of her work. This is also the case in the installation in Haus für Kinder, which both warmly welcomes the children and encourages them to dream. The depictions of animals and plants seem to be sourced from children’s books but are actually based on the children’s real environment and are inspired by the flora and fauna of the neighboring Aubinger Lohe. In this way, the ordinary becomes not only remarkable, but extraordinary.

Veit has also explored the theme of waiting in earlier works, for example, by grouping human figures in places of transition. The audience is always the explicit focus of her installations and is empowered to direct them, preside over them in such a wat as to allow reality and fiction to combine into new narrative strands. In the Haus für Kinder, Veit helps us understand wonder as an intuitive childlike force whose uncontrolled potential must be discovered and preserved. If all the little creatures have such transformative powers, how much can be discovered in each of us? The two blue rabbits form a prologue for the stories that the children themselves will invent.