In 1984, the PAS Group architect Jochem Jordan recommended Horst Gläsker to come up with ideas for the main central hall in the new building for Germany's Central Bank in Frankfurt, the equivalent of the Fed. The central hall lies in the middle of the building under this domed glass roof. Gläsker's suggestion was to create a mosaic mural in the end wall.

"It [the rainbow] mirrors human endeavour.
Consider this, and you will comprehend more clearly:
In this colourful reflection we have life itself." (Goethe)

"...so far Gläsker – as he himself admits – was familiar with 'Faust' only from his school's reading curriculum: 'Now, at the age of 35, I am not only having to read it but I must also do something with it.' So he immersed himself in its poetry, and the deeper he went the more he sensed an affinity to his own exuberant world of images, not only to the cosmic luminosity of his colourful domes but also to the happy mythological hybrid creatures that populate his art, indeed, the creatures that romp about his arbours and love temples are the same as those that celebrate Goethe's 'Classical Walpurgis Night'. For all this affinity, however, the artist realizes that he can neither illustrate the drama nor retell it. At best he could reduce it to its innermost core and festoon it with their – his and Goethe's – garlands. Thus he decides to give Faust's development a very wide berth. Faust himself, Mephisto, Gretchen, Helen of Troy, the entire worldly dramatis personae are omitted. Gläsker touches upon the text only where he can conjure up a single vision, artistically reduced, and from it fashion a multitude of semi-divine machinations, as with the central leitmotif of 'This Colourful Reflection' and the hybrid demigods. And since he lacks neither in imagination nor in self-confidence, Gläsker boldly states: 'I must create a new Faust.'"

Manfred Schneckenburger, text accompanying graphic folder: "Am farbigen Abglanz haben wir das Leben..." (In this colourful reflection we have life itself) (Goethe) Horst Gläsker, Wall and Fountain Mosaic, Deutsche Bundesbank, Head Office in Hesse, Frankfurt am Main, 2014

"The well, actually it is just a shallow pool of water, a puddle, the kind of pool that's left in car tracks after a warm summer downpour. You kneel down at the edge of this pool and discover that it is a deep hole in the ground, and you see in it the sky with all its cloudscapes and boundlessness. The sun lends the sky's mountains fullness and shape, the reflection in the water its unfathomable depth – heavenly waters. You float into it. Thales and Nereus, Dorides, Nereids and Hippokampi dive and soar up and down until Neptune, with his trident, restores the calm. And the setting sun seems to seethe like fire in the heavenly waters."

Horst Gläsker, 1988