Brigitte Kowanz :
Light Project

With the present project I wanted to offer a solution that takes up thematic and formal issues of my work, a solution which would permit an opening-up to the everyday life and functional requirements of the users while also forming an integrative element to the architecture. "Television is indirect light which illuminates events for us that take place somewhere else. Direct transmission gives television the light of immediacy, which enables us to communicate independently of any intervals in space or time. The unity of time and place is split up into a place of sending and a place of receiving, happening here and there at the same time. For the television viewer, the horizon does not lie in the background of the picture, but in the frame of the screen, in the framework of the program and, most of all, in the period of time devoted to watching television." (Paul Virilio)

The entrance and cafeteria area is marked off by glass walls on two sides. The covered porch as an element both separating and connecting interior and exterior can be clearly read as a sign of passage, but also acts as a screen for the cafeteria which is situated behind it. The glass surfaces come in various degrees of color and transpar-ency. Reflection and transparency combine to create an image area of this zone. Set into this surface is a TV monitor; in front of it there is a glass surface and a light bulb, the outline of which forms an opening in the glass which permits a look at the TV monitor.
(Brigitte Kowanz)