2020

öffentlich zugänglich

Haus für Kinder und Jugendzentrum, Lissi-Kaeser-Straße 13-15, 80797 München

ringförmige Holzbank, gravierte Messingschilder

Architecture: Asböck Architekten, München

Landscape architecture: Teutsch Ritz Rebmann Landschaftsarchitekten, München

Photos: Jens Weber

Text: Florian Matzner

Despite the supposed relief provided by the internet and cell phones, everyday life keeps getting faster, going almost full tilt. As an alternative, urban planners and sociologists, as well as artists, call for a “slowing down,” the “deacceleration” of public space.

This is precisely the task that the Munich-based artist Karolin Bräg has taken on with her project for a daycare and youth center. In front of the entrance stands a circular, light wooden sculpture that invites people to sit and linger. Brass plaques, like the name plates you see on the front doors of people’s homes, are attached on either side. On the plaques are names—the first and last names of children and teens who have been at the center. In her proposal for this art project, Bräg wrote: “The encounter between two people begins with each one introducing themselves by name. As soon as we start calling each other by our first names, we begin to consciously perceive the other. We become familiar with each other.” Furthermore: “The first name—often a nickname—helps to define our personalities, and we never forget the names of friends we found in kindergarten or as a teenager.”

Over the years, hundreds of name plates will ornament the circular wooden ring. With their personalities, their identities, their presence—as well as their absence—the children and teens perfect the art project in which the history of the site and its people are “inscribed.”