Peter Fischli / David Weiss

On a busy thoroughfare not far from Münster station the Swiss artist duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss constructed a house as their contribution to Skulptur Projekte in Münster 1987. Their built architectural vision fully corresponded with the surrounding buildings and radiated the typical charm of modernist post-war functionalist architecture. With its all-over grey concrete surfaces and painted plexiglas façades this 1:5 miniaturised replica of a four-storey office block perfectly blended in with its surroundings. The reproduction showed a particular type of building in full detail, with commercial premises, offices and main entrance on the street side, and a goods lift and loading bay at the back. The empty site between the former cinema and a snack bar offered a suitably unspectacular location for the project.

The project’s form was determined not by the pathos of contemporary free-standing buildings but by the surface appearance of so-called “modern life”. As such, Haus as a place of work was representative of our everyday environment. Conceived as a “miniaturised image of middle-class power and display of splendour”¹, it also manifested architecture’s shift in meaning. Fischli and Weiss were making an ironic reference to the paragon character of Münster in the post-war reconstruction of its historic townscape.

Beate Pittnauer

¹ Peter Fischli and David Weiss, “Das Haus”, in: Klaus Bußmann and Kasper König (eds.), Skulptur Projekte in Münster 1987, exhib. cat. Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Münster, Cologne, 1987, 88.