Untitled Document

Colour plays a special part in Stefan Behnisch's work. It does not serve to accentuate he architectural form but, on the contrary, deliberately defies the rationality and logic of his design. This is especially true of the isolated patches of colour applied to the already painted surfaces on the direct instructions of Behnisch and his team - i.e. without a preceding drawing being made - just prior to completion of the building. These localized accents challenge the spectator to view the building with a spontaneous,' non-architectural' gaze.

Seen from outside, the large, bright orange square painted on the wall of the stairwell at the east end of the building punctuates and 'outshines' the architectural structure of floors and stairways within which it is applied. The varied colours on one of the columns in this staircase have the effect of a dazzle

painting, camouflaging and tempering the visual dominance of the supporting structure in relation to the building. In the central stairwell, the logic of the supporting structure is challenged by the large, blue wall surface of the office wing, which appears to sink through the floor of the upper storey.

The yellow and green coloured rectangles on the corridor walls neither deny nor confirm the structure of the building. These colour accents have a purely optical function that is completely independent of the architectural form. As one walks from the glass-roofed gardens into the corridors, the coloured planes seem to arouse an after-image of the yellow of the sunlight, the blue of the sky and the green of the foliage. A similar optical effect may be experienced in the cool, blue-printed concrete ceilings of the office wings on the sunlit side of the building, and in the warm, yellow-painted ceilings of the north-facing laboratories.