This large printed architectural drawing is a presentation study for the facades of a building in Munich designed by international architects famous for their use of colour. The image represents the movement of colour bars that Sauerbruch Hutton integrated into to the skin of an 1980s office block that they refurbished.

The Architects
Husband and wife architects Matthias Sauerbruch and Louisa Hutton founded their practice in London in 1989. A few years later, having won the competition to build the GSW Headquarters in Berlin, they relocated to Berlin. A succession of commissions for large public, cultural, education, residential and urban planning schemes gained them wide acclaim. Amongst the many honours, Louisa Hutton was elected a Royal Academician of the Royal Academy of Arts in 2014.

The Building Represented
The building houses the headquarters for the large global reinsurance company Munich Re. The company had acquired an office block built in the 1980s that needed complete refurbishment. Having won the 2009 competition Sauerbruch Hutton completed works in 2014. In renewing and re-inventing the façade, the architects added bands of vertical coloured bands using ‘the principle of kenetic polychromy’.

The Drawing
Technically, this architectural drawing is a print, designed by the architects in 2016, and made by staff computer operators using Microstation, Rhino and Adobe Illustrator software. Commissioned for the V&A as a gift by the architects, the drawing was printed in 2018 by commercial printers Genesis Imaging Ltd, London, using a Durst Lambda machine, on Fujicolour Crystal Archive paper, glossy. The image of the facades are shown on a black background, in two bands, the coloured sections seen to wrap around the curving exterior. Added drama is given to the image as it is created and hung as a square on 45 degrees.

Statement by the Architects
The drawing was made to explore the idea of kinetic polychromy; that is, how can one represent the fourth dimension of time – as well as movement - on a two-dimensional surface.

While the drawing refers to our project for Munich Re that was completed in 2014, it also generally reflects the concept of kinetic polychromy that we have explored in several of our buildings (Brandhorst Museum, Munich, Claude Bernard, Paris and BB4, Boulogne-Billancourt).
Kinetic polychromy proposes spaces that unfold in a cinematographic logic. Colour is used not only to provide visual and atmospheric qualities but also helps to establish an ever-changing relationship between the architectural object and its moving users or passers-by.

The refurbishment of a 1980s office block for Munich Re provided a rare opportunity to upcycle an existing building. While most of the concrete frame was retained and only moderately adapted the skin was completely renewed. Wrapping staircase cores that had protruded from the building line, this skin is pulled tightly over a series of concave curves that are structured by the frequent rhythm of façade panels. A dynamic sequence of narrow steps, highlighted in changing–and-exchanging colour families, creates a colourful body that itself seems to be in movement. The building is situated on a wide city ring road; its polychromatic treatment follows the logic of ubiquitous movement and encourages people to perceive the city as a sensual landscape.