On 23 March 2018, Gilbert Bretterbauer won BIG’s Kunst & Bau competition for the design of a large-scale curtain in the Kepler Hall on the JKU Campus Linz with his project entitled Farbräume, Segel (Colour Spectra, Sails).
The judges explained their decision as follows:
“Gilbert Bretterbauer’s curtain design is – in keeping with his artistic practice – an autonomous textile installation that can simultaneously serve as a functional object. Picking up on the Kepler Hall’s serial façade structure, he has developed different geometric colour patterns consisting of individual modules for each side of the building. He generated these patterns by diagonally dividing the basic shape of the individual glass segments. On the one hand, the design opens up the architectural space into colour spectra, and on the other hand it adds a rhythmic dynamic to the consistent verticality of the façade. The colours create a cheerful, lively atmosphere in the room’s discreet design and act as a beacon showing the way to the Kepler Hall, the “gateway to the campus”. The visible seams also allow insight into the production process of the work. The curtain’s translucence is reminiscent of the diaphanous principle of medieval church windows and also makes reference, at various levels, to Johannes Kepler, the university’s eponym and one of the fathers of modern science, whose research also extended to the field of optics. The words ‘KEPLER HALL’, which appear in the separating element of the curtain, are an explicit reference; there is also an implicit reference in the complex play with optically simulated spaces, which can also be seen as an allusion to Kepler’s work as a mathematician in the field of geometry.”