Press release

Published with the kind permission of the Bell

A place to learn and live well   
Gütersloh (bit). The children's bus drums announce it, and headmaster Gerhard Dickers is pleased: the Hundertwasser School with the special focus on emotional and social development in the primary sector has "found a real home" at the location of the former Volkening School on Holzstraße in Gütersloh. A "place of learning and living where you have to feel at home".
After the conversion and architecturally striking extension, Mayor Maria Unger spoke of a great day for pupils and the city. The Hundertwasser School, founded five years ago under the auspices of the Gütersloh district at the Edith Stein School, later moved to the neighbourhood of the Anne Frank Comprehensive School and has been a municipal school since 2006. Unger referred to the richness of colour of the artist who gave the school its name. He appeals to pupils who are looking for creativity. In his "raindrop falling into the city", children would find parallels of their desires, said the mayor.
NRW Minister of Education Barbara Sommer, as a guest, underlined the close ties to the city and district of Gütersloh, where she worked as a school councillor. She wanted to have a dialogue with children, but they were already on the school bus. Then she wanted to talk about Hundertwasser. Unger beat her to it. Nevertheless, the minister stayed with the artist, who stimulated the fantasies of boys and girls with his boat. Life has sides of darkness and brightness. Sommer felt gratitude for Hundertwasser, who had always railed against the straight line, and his colourful pictures.
"One headmaster, one colleague and five boys," Dickers described the beginning in dialogue with this first colleague Kerstin Richter. "We were not even a dwarf school and were laughed at a bit," the headmaster recalled. He thanked the school department head Siegfried Lieske in Detmold and school board member Hartmut Stieghorst in the district administration for their support. He called the transfer to the city of Gütersloh in 2006 a fortunate moment, because the city was just thinking about comprehensive open all-day schools. Dockers considered the current form of the Hundertwasser School as an all-day facility with a focus on social education in cooperation with the city's school and youth departments to be a model case.
Guests included Ursula Doppmeier MdL and District President Marianne Thomann-Stahl. A very special guest was Lisa Weber (92). She had lived for 80 years in the teacher's flat at the Volkening School, where her father was once headmaster and she herself taught for 30 years.
(Published on 15.09.2007 in Die Glocke)

Published with the kind permission of the Westfalen Blatt

Named after multi-talent
Hundertwasser School is inaugurated today
It is named after the artist, multi-talent and environmentalist Hundertwasser and is called "Förderschule der Stadt Gütersloh" (special school of the city of Gütersloh). After changing locations, the dedicated school has now found its new home at Holzstraße 30.
The school has belonged to the city since 1 August 2006. In 2002 it was founded as a school for educational support of the district of Gütersloh with a class of five pupils and a teacher for special needs education and is now located at Holzstraße.
The new school building will be officially inaugurated today, Friday, at 2.30 pm. The school minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Barbara Sommer, is expected to attend. In a presentation entitled "Five Years of the Hundertwasser School", Headmaster Gerhard Dickers will take stock of the school's development and outline its prospects. Siegfried Lieske, head of the school department in Detmold, will give a presentation on the Hundertwasser School in the context of the changing school landscape. The official programme will end with a tour of the school.
The new location draws a line under the provisional arrangements: From 2002 to 2004, the special school was housed in the Edith Stein School, and from 2004 to 2007 in a provisional location at the Anne Frank School. Nevertheless, the team of teachers has constantly worked on the development of this school. From the beginning of the 2007/2008 school year, the special school will be run as an open all-day school. In this way, the Hundertwasser School wants to support the emotional and social development of its approximately 50 pupils. A corresponding agreement with the Sozialpädagogisches und Psychomotorisches Institut Gütersloh (SPI) and the city of Gütersloh was signed by those responsible. With the SPI, a provider with whom the Youth Department has been working for years in the fields of rehabilitation and educational support is taking over the all-day care. The city has invested three million euros in the extension of the former Volkening School. No straight lines: The façade at the rear of the former Volkening School was designed in the spirit of the artist Hundertwasser for the school named after him.
(Published on 14.09.2007 in the Westfalen-Blatt)

Published with the kind permission of the Westfalen Blatt 

The world of children is not always colourful
Hundertwasser School officially inaugurated
By Michael Delker

Headmaster Gerhard Dicker received a Hundertwasser house in miniature as a gift from Mayor Maria Unger. School Minister Barbara Sommer spoke a word of greeting at the inauguration.

Gütersloh (WB) The time of provisional arrangements is over. After the former Volkening School was extended by an annex+, the Hundertwasser School was able to officially inaugurate its new domicile on Friday afternoon. After years in the Edith Stein School and in a provisional building at the Anne Frank School, the special school has finally found a home. The importance of this step for children, parents and teachers was made clear by Mayor Maria Unger's gift: she presented headmaster Gerhard Dickers with a Hundertwasser house in miniature - it can be used as a bird house.

The North Rhine-Westphalian Minister of Education, Barbara Sommer, who used to work as a school councillor in the district of Gütersloh ("This is where I experienced my best professional time"), gave a welcoming speech. She told the invited guests that the artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser had given himself the name "Dunkelbunt" during his lifetime. "This name fits well with the children who go to school here. Their world is not always colourful," said Barbara Sommer. The Hundertwasser School has set itself the goal of promoting the emotional and social development of children who cannot cope in a conventional type of school.

In conversation with his colleague Kerstin Richter, Gerhard Dickers recalled the founding of the school five years ago. At that time there were only five pupils, "and we were probably the smallest school in North Rhine-Westphalia." Since then, the school has slowly developed, and that is a good thing.

(Published on 15.09.2007 in the Westfalen-Blatt)

Published with the kind permission of NW - Neue Westfälische 

Finally found a home
Gütersloh has a new school / Inauguration with Minister Sommer 
BY ROLF BIRKHOLZ
Gütersloh. "We are children of this world, and we drum as we please". Drumming, singing, whistling, children from the Hundertwasser School yesterday welcomed School Minister Barbara Sommer, District President Marianne Thomann-Stahl and the other guests at their school's inauguration ceremony. Music and singing, the results of an African drumming project, made it seem as if the pupils had already taken possession of their house named after the artist and environmentalist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the former Volkening School on Oststraße/Holzstraße, which has been extended by an annex.
Headmaster Gerhard Dickers was pleased that the special school with a focus on emotional and social development, which was founded in 2002 and was initially owned by the district but has since become a municipal school, has now found "a real home" at its new location after two moves, and has become a place to go to school and a place to live. It was a stroke of luck that the designs of the municipal architect Karl-Heinz Rempe "were able to create happy spaces in the spirit of Hundertwasser". Dickers saw another stroke of luck in the fact that the Sozialpädagogisches und Psychomotorisches Institut Gütersloh (SPI), with which the centre cooperates in day care, support measures and parental care, has a support centre and a sports hall right next door on Holzstraße, which can also be used. Mayor Maria Unger had first thought of combining both facilities on one site and thus made the synergy effect possible.

Looking to the future, Dickers could imagine a socio-educational competence centre here. This was also echoed by Siegfried Lieske, head of the school department of the district government, and Hartmut Stieghorst, the Gütersloh school board member, who had devised a role-playing dialogue. In response to Stieghorst's statement that the Hundertwasser School had achieved a lot in five years, Lieske said: "All young people, highly motivated: What else would you expect?"

Dickers and Kerstin Richter, his first employee at the time, had already suggested this assessment in retrospect. With two teachers and five pupils, they "felt like the smallest school in North Rhine-Westphalia" and were laughed at a bit. Then they described the constant upward development, including participation in the independent school and open all-day projects, where they sometimes "reached the limits of their capacity".

School Minister Barbara Sommer spoke refreshingly freely without a manuscript. She told how Friedrich Stowasser once found his artist name Friedensreich Hundertwasser. By trying to put herself in the children's souls, by also pointing out the artist's term "dunkelbunt" (dark-coloured) for all the artist's bright colours, she warmly appealed to the children instead of just reading off a presented text, as is not unusual in such cases with politicians.

From Volkening to Hundertwasser
After two provisional locations, the Hundertwasser School has found its new home in the former Volkschule at Holzstraße 30 (access actually Oststraße), named after the revivalist preacher Johann Heinrich Volkening and built in 1903. As a school for educational support of the district, it was initially housed in the Edith Stein School, later in the Anne Frank School. In 2006, the city took over the running of the school. Started in 2002 with a two-person staff and five pupils, today, including the all-day area, 20 professionals take care of 50 pupils at the site as well as 20 other children who receive direct support at their primary schools. The renovation and extension according to the plans of architect Karl-Heinz Rempe cost three million euros. Rempe remained true to the principle of the right angle in the extension. However, the colour scheme, especially on the back wall, as well as the colourful turrets are clearly based on the expression of the artist and fantasy awakener Hundertwasser.
(Published on 15.09.2007 in the NW- Neue Westfälische)