mira façade, Munich - Léon Wohlhage Wernik

LÉON WOHLHAGE WERNIK, Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH
mira façade, Munich
LÉON WOHLHAGE WERNIK developed a façade concept for mira, a new shopping
centre with a multi-storey car park, after winning a competition in 2006. The shopping
centre was initially a large, unstructured volume in a development area in the
northern part of the city. The coloured exterior façade fulfils two requirements:
It creates an unmistakeable, memorable identity for mira and also has the effect
of a background for the neighbouring residential development. Fields of colour
structure the large façade surface and give pedestrians a more pleasant grasp of its
size. Mainly however, people perceive the multicoloured hanging façade from their
cars on three sides of the building. The large shopping centre is situated on a busy
major road.
The prismatic folding of the colourfully painted and partially polished aluminium
sheeting gives each field two colours. When driving past the façade, it acts like a
picture puzzle that changes its appearance depending on the viewer’s perspective
and direction of movement. The power of the idea lies in movement: Passers by
only grasp the interplay of the façade with their own perception by moving past
it. The coloured fields alternate with reflective fields that mirror the sky and the
city – thereby creating their own dynamism and depth. From that relief-like image,
the white sections of the building, a plastered façade with shop windows, provide
contrast and frame the new square in front of the main entrance.
www.leonwohlhagewernik.de
© LÉON WOHLHAGE WERNIK, Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH, Fotos: © Klaus F. Linscheid, Aichach