In mid-February 2023 a proposal was submitted in an art-for-architecture competition for a new centre for public offices, the Behördenzentrum Rostock. The building, a protected monument now undergoing thorough restoration, is to accommodate four departments of the state administration. The proposal, entitled “Entfaltungsraum” (Space for Development), foresees a system of sculptures in the outdoor area.
Space for development is the shared promise made to the citizens by the four departments that will occupy the building. In this sense, the title is the common denominator of the four fields of work of these offices. The art concept suggests space for development by means of linear sculptures which, seen individually, project into a space and, seen together, open up a space for development.
The four sculptures differ in their individual forms, but above all through differences of colour: the colours of the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. In their lines they resemble living plants, suggesting development. As a four-part sculptural group they stand in front of the main entrance to the building, and as individual sculptures in front of the entrances to the departments to which they relate.
The sculptures serve as symbols for the individual departments and, in reduced graphic form, are suitable for a system of orientation, an option that could evolve from this art concept.