Foyer Und Leitsystem Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
How can crowded spaces be made to seem emptier via temporary structural additions? Here, the dominance of existing columns and staircases is relativized by focusing on space: light is used to insert a new space into the foyer, also creating a signage system. A continuous light strip on the ground floor and four light walls upstairs form an immaterial white envelope with large lettering indicating the foyers various functions. With a toy-like disregard for the proportions of its support, the typography frees itself from the imperatives of the existing architecture and becomes the basis for a new spatiality. A second envelope is created by lightboxes running along the central balustrade, displaying exhibition titles for visitor orientation. With their computerized RGB light-mixing technology, these lightboxes (unlike the white envelope) can generate exhibition-specific logo colors. The lighting and signage system translates technical means (lighting, displays, inscriptions) into architecture, where they appear not as objects but as space-shaping surfaces. On the ground floor, the services (tickets/information/catalogs, cloakroom, seating) are set below the light strip as low-key white elements. Using a sheeting system developed for illuminated billboards, large, seamless, printed surfaces can be manufactured economically.
