The Print Media Academy in Heidelberg is the hub of an international network of academies located in the USA, China, Malaysia, Japan, Russia, Brazil, Australia and Egypt.  They say that they, "keep a close eye on global developments and trends in and around the graphic arts industry and incorporate them into our highly practical training courses."  They describe their Heidelberg building as an impressive 50 metre glass cube that is, "... chock full of metaphores."  The moment you step inside the building you are confronted by them.  "From the lobby, you can look all the way up to the 11th floor. There is room for your ideas to grow. The two towers containing meeting rooms clearly represent the cylinders found in printing presses. And in the basement, a dome-shaped red auditorium rests in a pool of water, depicting the two most important elements in offset printing: ink and water."

Outside stands the S-Printing Horse (see above), which the academy describes as one of the world's largest horse sculptures.  Standing 13 metres high and 15 metres in length, it is the creation of Jürgen Goertz, the artist who created the "Rolling Horse" sculpture (see below) at the front of Berlin's Hauptbahnhof.


The Academy says that, "The horse consists of stainless steel elements that represent parts of a printing press and the printing process. For example, the holes in the neck allude to the holes drilled in the side panels of a press to receive the bearings for the cylinders. The rotating elements on the horse's flanks symbolize the rotation that is characteristic of the print process. The process chain is completed by the tail of the "S-Printing Horse", which consists of an abstract book that is alternately illuminated at night in the three process colors: cyan, magenta and yellow. Finally, the book is read by a stylized face."