Kunsthalle
Kunsthalle for an installation by Hans Op de Beeck and a sculpture by Subodh Gupta
The “Kunsthalle Goeschenen” forms an ensemble together with the Kunstdepot (2013), an arsenal converted by burkhaltersumi and the small pavilion by Jean Nouvel for Expo 2002.
construction
The ceiling thickness of the single-shell concrete folding structure is only 16 cm. This is prestressed and covers the space without supports. The folded walls are clamped into the foundations and connected to the ceiling in a rigid manner. This creates a box, a bulwark against the forces of nature.
location
The building is wedged into the landscape like an arrow and refers to the protective wedges that protect the houses and pylons of the electrical cables from avalanches. It is thus an infrastructure “without scale“ and becomes so part of the “Gotthard Space” as a traffic landscape.
art
The Kunsthalle is being built especially for the installation by the Belgian artist Hans Op de Beeck “the Collector's House”, an interior space measuring 12m x 20m. Once the work has been installed, this room will “disappear” visually and acoustically, becoming “invisible”, a somewhat paradoxical situation.
The musician Luca Burkhalter, together with three singers, recorded music in the shell of the empty folding structure and documented it with a video (FERO / I recognize). This preserves the “disappeared space”. The sculpture “Nature Morte” by Subodh Gupta is located in the anteroom.
Conclusion
The process, the exploitation of the unfinished, the amazement and respect for the various intermediate stages of the construction process is the central experience of this project. The space is strikingly robust and at the same time restrained. The artwork and the architecture should be able to take on a life of their own and retain their own identity. The tension between the subtle, slightly surreal, alienated installation by Hans Op de Beeck and the work of Subodh Gupta on the one hand and the rough, immediate landscape on the other - separated, protected by a shell only 16 cm thick - creates an unexpected experience.
