2019

öffentlich zugänglich

Grünanlage an der Kunreuthstraße, 81249 München

Skulptur aus patiniertem Kupferblech, Stahl, Beton, Holz

Landscape architecture: West 8 Urban Design & Landscape Architecture, Rotterdam, Niederlande

Photos: Guido Erbring, Köln, Mutter/Genth

Text: Bernhart Schwenk

With its lofty height, the tower in the large park in Freiham can be seen from nearly every point. Its unusual silhouette towers more than twenty meters into the air. The artwork’s colored surface is made of a tile-like pattern of pre-patinated copper sheets whose turquoise and earth tones will change over the course of time. While the delicate-looking tower itself recalls a maypole or an oriental minaret, the spire, with its sensuously arched balcony, is reminiscent of the onion dome of a Bavarian church. In addition, the shaft is a spherical shape made of greenish concrete, which lends the towering structure a feeling of almost dance-like motion.

The humorous fusion of different, identifiable forms can be interpreted programmatically and evokes numerous layers of associations entirely in the tradition of the English landscape garden, once considered a kind of “space for thought,” a place where the imagination can freely roam. The two artists also refer to this in their title for the piece, Freiham Folly. In the eighteenth century a folly was an extravagant, ornamental structure, which helped to create an emotional aura and the cheerful, often fairy-tale-like atmosphere of a landscaped park. The beloved monopteron in the English Garden in Munich is one of the most prominent examples of this. Thanks to its self-confident pictorial vocabulary, the Freiham Folly gives the new urban area and its surroundings in the west of Munich a powerful seal and forms a contemporary analogy to the cultural diversity of its residents.