Friedrich St. Florian undertook the theoretical Himmelbett project during a period in which he oscillated between embracing and rejecting built form, and explored the juxtaposition between real physical space and the imaginary realm of dreams. In this drawing, a holographic projection of the sky, or heaven, hovers above what St. Florian described as a classic bed, constructed from the essential building blocks of steel and stone. The green marble floor was to have a high polish in order to reflect the sky above. This would, in effect, allow the inhabitant to float somewhere between heaven and earth, as if taking a "walk into the sky."
Publication excerpt from an essay by Bevin Cline and Tina di Carlo, in Terence Riley, ed., The Changing of the Avant-Garde: Visionary Architectural Drawings from the Howard Gilman Collection, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002, p. 127.
