Lighthouses of Knowledge

Campus of University Essen is crumbling for years. Refurbishment work, funded by the University Modernization Programme, has been under way since 2008. Within this context, Düsseldorf based artist Horst Gläsker was engaged to design a concept to give Essen's Campus with its 21 grey octagonal concrete towers a new face. Gläsker successfully had completed projects in which colour intervals played the lead (e.g. Holsteiner Staircase, Wuppertal).  In 2009 the first tower has got its new face of powder coated, coloured aluminium panels. And as it costs just over a million euro to install the powder-coated aluminium surfaces, cost expenditure is a recurring topic in public discussions. Up to 2014 only 3 towers have been completed. To complete the ambitious plans for those distinctive coloured towers, the university has been looking for sponsors to continue. If it carries on in this way, the facades of the 21 towers will be completed by the end of this century.