Kindergarten Wolfartsweier, Karlsruhe, Germany (2011)
Designed by Tomi Ungerer and Ayla Suzan Yöndel, the Kindergarten Wolfartsweier has been delighting children since it opened in 2011. The interior looks like a standard kindergarten, with coat hooks along the wall for the one hundred children who attend the school. Above the hooks, brightly colored children’s artwork hangs proudly on the walls. A staircase extends down the middle, under the light of the large, round windows. But the outside is where the building shines. It looks like a large, gray cat ready to playfully pounce on the children. Students walk into the building through the cat’s “mouth,” a front door hidden under a protruding nose decked out with whiskers.’ The large, round windows viewed from the inside are the cat’s eyes. And one of the best part of the building is actually in the back; the cat’s tail, which children can use as a slide.
