Boscher Theodor – LichtHof

LichtHof is a large-scale installation conceived for the 700th anniversary of the consecration of the Dom's choir in Cologne. It will be placed in the atrium of the Domforum, one of the city's post-war landmarks, across the square from the cathedral.

Several aluminium frames have each been reduced to just one horizontal and one vertical bar and in the place of a canvas, there are transparent, slightly reflective 16mm and 35mm film strips interwoven and with their ends falling freely. The individual elements hang in a vertical stagger from up above the atrium. They reflect the light coming in through a glass roof and redirect it down into the hall and onto the ground floor, creating a constantly moving play of light, colour and reflections.

The emphasis on verticality and the cascading of the elements point to the element light and to the current metaphysical ideas of the Gothic period. In The Time of Cathedrals, French historian Georges Duby recalls the medieval conception of the universe as "a luminous spring cascading down". Boscher Theodor's LichtHof engages thus in a direct dialog with the oldest windows of the Gothic cathedral, all of which are in placed the 700 hundred years old choir.