2006

öffentlich zugänglich

Am Fröttmaninger Berg im Stadtteil Freimann

Beton, Kalkzementputz, Silikatfarbe

concrete, silicate and dispersion paints

Architecture: In Zusammenarbeit mit Maier Neuberger Partner

Photos: Wilfried Petzi

Text: Michael Stoeber

Timm Ulrichs´s art piece, Sunken Village, works with the doppelganger as its motif. Through it, the artist brilliantly succeeds in referring to the specifics of the site where the piece is installed. Ulrichs created a visually deceptive, one-to-one scale duplicate of the neighboring Holy Cross Church, a small village church dating from the Middle Ages. The twin suffers through something that could also have happened to the original: most of it is buried in a landfill that is now overgrown with vegetation.

Ulrichs’s work sensitively reflects the history of architectural changes in northern Munich, which began in the mid-twentieth century. Long before the world-famous Allianz Arena, designed by the architects Herzog & de Meuron, became a tourist attraction here, a landfill was built in the 1950s right next to where the arena now stands, on the site of the old village of Fröttmaning, whose first historical mention is in the year 815. At the time, the village and its farms fell victim to the project. They were all torn down; only the church could be saved. When it was renovated in 1980, precious murals from the time it was built were discovered on its walls.

With his architectural sculpture Sunken Village — the title also cites the poem of the same name, written in 1813 by Friedrich Rückert — Timm Ulrichs presents a panoply of doom. The artist views his work as an indication of loss, as well as a surreal, melancholy, atmospheric image. But with the sunken doppelganger, he has also created a magnificent portent of a haunting presence that evokes the cost of progress both playfully and poetically.