Otto Herbert Hajek - Art in architectural space

Otto Herbert Hajek is undoubtedly one of the leading German artists of the 20th century. Trained as a sculptor at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart from 1947 to 1954, Hajek first gained wide attention at the end of the 1950s with his "space knots" and "space stratifications" as well as with large-format bronze sculptures with heavily rugged surfaces. From then on, his engagement with space became his major theme, one that would accompany him throughout his life. His international breakthrough came with his contribution "Frankfurter Frühling" to documenta 3 (1964)—a walk-in installation of six concrete objects, through which Hajek broke the boundaries between artwork and viewer, art object and surrounding space for the first time. Starting in the 1960s, he increasingly moved from the museum context into public space, leading to a fundamental change in his design expression from 1966 onwards. The intricate sculptures were replaced by a strong simplification of form, a reduction to constructive-geometric shapes, mainly combined with a focus on the primary colors red, blue, and yellow. Until his death in 2005, Hajek created nearly 170 architecture-related works, more than 100 of which were realized.

This project is completed and was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Cultural Heritage Foundation of Baden-Württemberg. Scientific processing by Birgit Nelissen.