2007

öffentlich zugänglich

U-Bahnhof Oberwiesenfeld, 80809 München

Wandverkleidung, pulverbeschichtete Aluminiu-Paneele, schwarz/weiß und orange

Architecture: Paul Kramer and Manfred Rossiwal-Jespersen

Photos: Hans Döring

Text: Birgit Sonna

At metro hubs, streams of public transportation vehicles crisscross each other, weaving in and out of traffic and getting stuck in it. Rudolf Herz “stylizes” these interconnected transportation routes, turning them into an abstract pattern, a so-called anamorphic (or distorted) labyrinth. Anamorphosis was used as a stylistic means as far back as Hans Holbein the Younger: In his famous London painting The Ambassadors (1533), a distorted, reflected skull can be discerned from only one angle. In translating the largely forgotten idea of anamorphosis to a twenty-first-century subway station, Rudolf Herz has made use of Minimalist means. Two diametrically opposed perspectives of his black-and-white striped wall are possible: What from the front crystallizes as a rhythmic, only seemingly illogical placement of overlapping, staggered, black-and-white bars, melts into a labyrinth when seen from the side. Only the off-centered view from the entrance allows the bars to link up into a recognizable motif. The further the vanishing point is from the viewer, the more tightly the ornamentation of the labyrinth is drawn together. The labyrinth’s art deco elegance responds to the discreet, matte, orange-red, louvered surface of the opposite wall. In a place of “placelessness” like the subway, the gaze becomes entangled in an intriguing puzzle.