Passage
Chiharu Shiota
Back to the home port
In 2016, the Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, who lives in Berlin, won the international competition for the realization- to create a permanent artwork in the "WINX" Tower in Frankfurt am Main with her design "Passage".Her spectacular art installation focuses on the history of the Main metropolis as a trading city and features seven boats floating in the foyer and one on the façade of the large office building.
The art of engineering
Each boat has an individual woven look created by Chiharu Shiota herself. Six of the boats were delivered to her studio in Berlin on specially developed, rotating frames and "woven" by the artist with a special thread developed for fire protection. In order to transport the seventh and largest boat through the double doors of the Winx building lobby, we first divided it into several segments, assembled them and suspended them from the ceiling on steel cables. Specialists from the artist's studio carried out the weaving by hand on site according to precise specifications.
Special requirements for fire protection and statics
One of the biggest challenges was to integrate a fully functional, integrated sprinkler system into the artwork. This system had to meet all necessary guidelines while remaining invisible so as not to detract from the artistic vision. This required precise planning and execution to meet both functional and aesthetic requirements.
Statics also play a major role when you want to suspend high loads from a glass roof, as here in the lobby. Thanks to complex structural calculations, the load-bearing steel cables are reliably positioned and safe load distribution is guaranteed.
All good things come from above
The boat attached to the façade conceals a further technical refinement. Due to its outdoor positioning, the use of yarn was unsuitable and a weatherproof solution had to be found. We built a 1:3 scale version of the boat and sent it to the artist, who wove it in by hand. Back at Arnold, the woven pattern was digitized using a CAD scan, laser-cut from sheet aluminium, adapted to the hull of the boat and attached. In ideal weather conditions, the façade boat was installed on the outer façade of the high-rise building using a large crane and façade climbers. This complex installation required precise coordination and expert execution to ensure the safe and correct installation of the artwork.
Many thanks to the artist and WinX GmbH for allowing us to be part of this inspiring project!
More projects