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Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stations, Pempelforter Strasse, Spatial Conception, Raeumliches Konzept, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten, Photo netzwerkarchitekten
Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stations, Pempelforter Strasse, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten, Photo Joerg
Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stations, Pempelforter Strasse, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten, Photo Achim Kukulies
Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stations, Pempelforter Strasse, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten, Photo Achim Kukulies
Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stations, Pempelforter Strasse, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten, Photo Joerg
Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stations, Pempelforter Strasse, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten, Photo Achim Kukulies
Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stations, Pempelforter Strasse, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten, Photo Joerg Hempel

Surround

Heike Klussmann

At the Pempelforter Strasse station Heike Klussmann works with the 3D effects of the space’s specific geometries. She measured the station and transposed the measurements onto a 3D model. She took the directions of movement from each entrance, extended them into the station and placed four white bands, each with the same measurements as the entrances, as an inverted sculpture over the floor, walls and ceiling. The directions of the edges of the space were recorded so that they could break and process the geometry of the room. The band structure has an independent existence after breaking with the geometry of the space and as an inverted sculpture cuts across the perimeters of the station’s spaces. The resulting three-dimensional effect of this game with the dimensions of surfaces and spaces is surprising. It seems that the actual boundaries of the subway station have dissolved.

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Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stations, Pempelforter Strasse, Artistic Conception, Kuenstlerisches Konzept, Bahnhof mit Foyer, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten

Heike Klussmann – Surround

Text by Anja Schürmann
»That the paths, once identifiable, have continuity as well, is an obvious functional necessity. People regularly depended upon this quality. The fundamental requirement is that the actual track, or bed of the pavement go through…« (Kevin Lynch)*

The way through the Pempelforter Straße U-Bahn station is in no way consistent. What am I seeing, one wonders, what can I even see? Black, white, oblong, perhaps ribbons? They run over and under one another, invading and bouncing apart.
This, what a space usually tames, what holds it together, is its universal qualification: space can be measured. Klussmann understands her room as it is and simultaneously completely differently. She has accurately measured the space and converted it into a 3D model. And, in parallel, she destroys it, sees it as a procession, as a way of many ways, as space that through and through takes on its form of use. Four white bands that have the same mass as the entrance areas move from each entrance through the space. The flow over and under, right and left in the station, bounce off the walls and on the floor like a billiard ball and branch out further into the station. The base of the enameled tiles is black and through the five entrances they come, 20 white bands flooding the station, intersecting, overlapping and continuing into the U-Bahn tunnel where they meet the rhomboid pattern of Continuum, also designed by Klussmann. The title of the work, Surround, could be translated as »the enclosure, the environment,« which the room also confers on another level. It is a conscious avoidance of representation through a central perspective of which the binary color is a result. And, at the same time, leads to the fundamental question of the perception of space that provokes the tilting effect in Pempelforter Straße. Image and space alternate with each other, flatness of the black white is spatial through the overlapping and collision of the bands. As a guided overwriting of the public spaces, the bands simulate paths that are infinitely absurd – or gray, if one thinks further spectrally. In a current project, touch sensitive design materials have been created and, for example, make the touch of dripping water or the movement, or lack thereof, from people traceable. The processes shown here are, as traces, in some sense intentionally arbitrary. Arbitrary in the sense that just as calculations and simulations are a blurred mental map of the city – which is largely determined by the ways one travels through it – is always harder to create through present day excitement. Because the U-Bahn stations have – according to French anthropologist Marc Augé – no identity, relations or history more than as a place where you stop. They are no-places. Klussmann is aware of the precarious situation of such places and does not even try to transform the U-Bahn station into a living room: She accepts the procedural nature of space and its transit function. A space that is not for lingering, rather is conceived of for traversing, and then she visualizes this transit in black and white.

* Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City, Cambridge, MA., MIT Press, 1960, p. 52.

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Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stations, Pempelforter Strasse, Artistic Conception, Kuenstlerisches Konzept, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten

Process and Construction

The geometries of the bands were produced based on CAD files, in which the exact location of the colored stripes on the floor, wall and ceiling were defined. These themes were generated using the 3D models the artist had made. Guaranteeing the precise continuity of the colored stripes represented a special challenge when coordinating the different trades active on the project and required close planning coordination cutting across the various trades. The directions of the stripes run against the grid of the surfaces of the wall, ceiling and floor, and therefore gives rise to two-color expansion elements on all surfaces. Each of the two-color elements is unique and provides an individual section of the artwork’s theme that is not repeated at any other point.
The graphic bands were enameled, i.e. first covered with a wet electrostatic coating method and then seared into the enameled wall panels using a two-layer/single-firing technique at a temperature of 840° C. The continuation of the bands across the ceiling was achieved by screen printing on powder-coated ceiling panels. For the floor, water jet technology was used to cut the bands into the concrete stones. The individual pieces were set in precut recesses. The resulting impression: the material runs seamlessly across the floors, walls and ceiling. The banded structure achieves an independent existence after breaking with the geometry of the space and, as an inverted sculpture, cuts across the perimeters of the station’s space proper.

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Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stationen, Pempelforter Strasse, Process and Construction, Prozess und Baukunst, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten, Metallobjekte, Photo Heike Klussmann
Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stationen, Pempelforter Strasse, Process and Construction, Prozess und Baukunst, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten, Modell, Photo Heike Klussmann
Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stationen, Pempelforter Strasse, Process and Construction, Prozess und Baukunst, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten, Skizze, Photo Heike Klussmann
Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stationen, Pempelforter Strasse, Process and Construction, Prozess und Baukunst, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten, Modell, Photo Heike Klussmann

Spatial concept

The Pempelforter Strasse subway station has two access points, one on the east the other on the west side, as well as two elevator shafts located in the middle of the station. These distribution levels, which lie opposite to each other, are connected by a central cut bites into the continuum like a seesaw shape. The angles of the ceilings are designed such that the both the platform and concourse levels enjoy clear sightlines and there is great visibility, thereby optimizing pathways. In the center of the station, beyond the angled cuts into the incised ceilings, there is a rail substation, connected by enclosed bridges to the concourse level. Access at the east end is through two entrances parallel to the street. The west end also has two parallel entrances and one more on Oststrasse. The constrained urban space at street level meant the stairs from the concourse level to the platform level had to be positioned one behind the other. The side platforms are each connected by an elevator to the center of the station.

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Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stations, Pempelforter Strasse, Spatial Conception, Raeumliches Konzept, Heike Klussmann, Schwarzplan
Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stations, Pempelforter Strasse, Spatial Conception, Raeumliches Konzept, Heike Klussmann, Modell
Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stations, Pempelforter Strasse, Spatial Conception, Raeumliches Konzept, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten, Photo netzwerkarchitekten
Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stations, Pempelforter Strasse, Spatial Conception, Raeumliches Konzept, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten, Photo netzwerkarchitekten
Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stations, Pempelforter Strasse, Spatial Conception, Raeumliches Konzept, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten, Photo netzwerkarchitekten
Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stations, Pempelforter Strasse, Spatial Conception, Raeumliches Konzept, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten, Photo netzwerkarchitekten
Wehrhahnlinie Duesseldorf, Stations, Pempelforter Strasse, Heike Klussmann, netzwerkarchitekten, Photo Joerg