Haus des Tourismus, Stuttgart
The Stuttgart Market Square is many things at once: a historic site of postwar reconstruction, an everyday thoroughfare, and the city’s stage. Its layered transformation reflects both postwar architecture and the gradual loss of identity. With the transformation of the former Breitling fashion house—sensitively extended by the firm asp Architekten—the 1950s structure is opened up and continued into the present, and we managed to provide the signage system in this endeavour. A new mix of uses makes the building public once again and anchors the Market Square as a place of encounter in the heart of Stuttgart.
The wayfinding system begins precisely here: it not only guides people through the building, but also tells a story of the city, its uses, and movement. Its information carriers recall unfolded maps—early tools of orientation from before digital systems took over space. Reading here means discovering, comparing, and moving on.
The graphic language works with symbols and reduction. Pictograms, developed in reference to Otto Neurath and Gerd Arntz, condense content into images. They are not neutral, but full of character: individual, open, contemporary—like the city itself. The illustrations allow spaces to be anticipated before one enters them. They create inner images, like travel photographs in the mind, even before the journey begins. In terms of color, the system operates within the tension between yellow and black—the colors of the city and the state. A clear statement: the wayfinding system is part of the architecture, part of the city, and part of its identity—an integrated whole made up of many individual elements.
Client: |
Stuttgart-Marketing GmbH |
Partners: |
'asp' Architekten |
Photos: |
Studio Tillack Knöll, Sven Tillack |
Studio Tillack Knöll is a multicreative design practice that concerns itself with the visual and spatial aspects of communication. We design exhibitions, wayfinding systems, books, posters, visual identities and digital experiences for a variety of clients involved in architecture, art, science and commerce to cultural institutions and NGOs.