Relief I

Karl Hartung designed reliefs on two facades of the WDR building. The earlier work from 1958/59 is made of Michelnauer tuff, a porous volcanic rock that was mined in Michelnau in Hesse until 1990. Ranging from silvery gray to rust red, the stone’s color spectrum gives this sculpture its effect, with the different shades forming a total of five horizontal stripes of equal width.

The top two stripes are redder, while the lower three have a silvery color. The relief facade is vertically divided into 18 axes. Here, concave curved pillars alternate with interspersed ellipsoidal forms. These spaces are structured with groups of blocks that appear similar at first, but each section has an individual design.

Within their oval outlines, these relief segments only share their mirror-symmetrical distribution and the consistent height of the horizontal stripes. Overall, the relief can be understood as study of a whole and its parts.

Reference: http://m.skulpturenfuehrer.de/de/skulpturenfuehrer-koeln/ort/relief-i