What do you expect in a university building?
Classrooms, corridors, hallways, toilets...
Art?
What about art?

The Albert-Ludwigs-Universität of Freiburg is one of the oldest universities in Germany (and Europe) and so finding that some of its buildings are venerable wasn't so much of a surprise.

Here's KG4 (building 4):


And you can already see a statue...

This is the interior of KG1, where we had our workshop:





Very venerable.
Respectable.




I had a second look (just to be sure I wasn't the victim of tedium induced stupor):



Yup. Buns
Nice ones too.
They belong to that chap:



A rather surprising sight for a University, even if KG1 is the seat of studies of Humanities.

All the more striking because the hall in which the statue stands is fairly austere:



Yes, there is a fresco with naked men on it but it is rather lugubrious.
And there is this huge chandelier:



The fresco in the main hall was less surprising.
It is a collage of pictures and texts in memory of the students victims of the nazis (jews, communists, gays, etc.).
It is an incredible and moving piece of work. This is just a small piece of it:



I was wondering if this group of statues in the inner courtyard did not have the same theme:



But there wasn't an explanation or even a name for the artist.
Looking at some of the faces I could not help but wonder if the monument was not for the students victims of terminal tedium:



Or having flunked the exams:



The mystery is intact.
 

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