Friedhelm Kürpig

Statement

For the author, geometry has not lost anything of its fascination even after over forty years of intense engagement with the subject. As an architect, he finds it a never-failing source of innovation and a symbol of eternal beauty. In his capacity as Professor of Descriptive Geometry at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg, his most important secondary activity lay in the development and production of educational models as visualizations of geometric laws. These models were generally acquired by Technical Universities as learning material for lectures and seminars. Over the years the emphasis of his work has changed somewhat, and today he prefers to focus on the aesthetic rather than on the didactic aspects of his objects.

Artworks

Slice model of a Rhombic Triacontahedron represented by sections at right angles to a twofold symmetry axis. This object is representative for a series of regular and semiregular polyhedra which have been developed for the last two years. You can see some of them on the author's website.( www.friedhelm-kuerpig.de)

The Cyclide is represented by twenty four meridian circles and seven parallel sections; all parts are provided with slots so that they can be pushed together.

The sphere is penetrated by two helicoids generated by screwing circles of different diameters. The helicoids appear as negative forms. The sculpture is composed of twenty nine sections at right angles to the axis of the helicoids.