The art-in-architecture competition for the FAIR Control Centre (FCC) building has a winner: an 8-meter-high copper column with an organically shaped, shiny metallic body in the upper third. The six designs, including the winning one, will be exhibited in the canteen from February 19 to March 1, 2024.

On the occasion of the construction of the new FCC and on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the State of Hesse, GSI launched a single-phase, invited and anonymous art-in-architecture competition. The aim was to sharpen the profile of FAIR/GSI through independent artistic designs and to make it visible to the outside world. The artwork was supposed to create an identity for the campus and have a strong signal effect. Six artists submitted their designs, which were assessed and evaluated by a jury of experts. The winner was the design “Entschleunigtes Teilchen — the FCC meteor” by Atelier Thomas Stricker. Stricker's design impressed with its use of copper and its symbolic representation of the connecting axis between research and the cosmos.

Ongoing construction 

The proposed site for the artwork is strategically placed at a central location in front of the entrance to the visitors‘ gallery, allowing the object to develop a striking and widely visible signal effect. The artwork will be installed in parallel with the ongoing construction of the FCC, which resumed in January after a temporary pause. The scaffolding on the west side of the Main Control Room has been completed, and the metalwork on the windows and doors of the building envelope, as well as the painting in the technical centers, is underway. In addition, the basic installation of the technical building equipment is scheduled to begin in early March. The contract for the facade work has already been awarded, and the commissioning of other finishing trades is planned to take place successively over the next few weeks.