2016

auf Anfrage zugänglich

Haus für Kinder Münchberger Straße 25, 81549 München

Schilder, pulverbeschichteter Stahl

Architecture: Zwischenräume Architekten + Stadtplaner, München

Landscape architecture: lohrer.hochrein landschaftsarchitekten und stadtplaner, München

Photos: Hans Engels

Text: Roberta De Righi

What is that? A blue flower, a yellow three-pointed star, a purple face? The path leading to the entrance of the daycare center at Münchberger Str. 25 is marked by enigmatic signs in richly contrasting colors. Wegweiser / Signposts is the name of the architectural art designed by the Munich artist Monika Kapfer. For it, she created six signs up to 3.4 meters tall and made of powder coated steel, which, at first glance, look familiar, but are not legible.

“Points and directions” is how Kapfer describes her basic elements. She chose the colors red, yellow, and blue, supplemented by green, gray, olive, pink, and purple. Kapfer developed the eye-catching signs out of figures such as circles, lines, and triangles, playing with the numbers two, three, six, and their doubles, as well, because each sign has two layers, consisting of two steel plates mounted at a distance of five centimeters from each other and slightly out of alignment, so that the views of the two sides are different.

It starts with a sign with six rounded protrusions. This is followed by a symbol that recalls a simple molecular structure: three rays move outward from the middle and end in circles. In another round sign, three smaller circles are cut out, so that it looks like there are two wide eyes and an open mouth. And at the end, where the path leads around the corner to the building entrance, is a sign with two overlapping triangles with slightly rounded corners. If you follow the approximately thirty-meter-long path from the other direction, the signs are the same shape, but in different colors.

Last, but not least, because the daycare center literally stands on the edge of the city—behind it, the meadows and fields begin—these objects help to decisively shape the building’s identity. At the same time, Kapfer’s Signposts capture the eye, focus thoughts, and lead straight to the realm of one’s own imagination.