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Exhibice:Sliding Glass Partition for EPFL in Lausanne, 1997
In collaboration with architect Ivan Koleček.
In the 1990’s, I investigated the processual nature of painting. Layered colourful structures were overlain with additional layers of undulating lines or straight lines, painted using a white glaze. At that time I contemplated a project for the Nová síň Gallery in Prague, proposing to phase the individual layers on sheets of glass, sequenced one behind another, so as to build a tunnel about ten meters long. When the architect Ivan Koleček learned about the project he invited me to collaborate on the design of a windbreak for the terrace of a café on the premises of the EPFL Polytechnic in Lausanne.
The design of the windbreak is based on the gallery project. Suspended from a mobile system are five sheets of glass, 310 x 150 cm, which can be folded up in winter when the café terrace is not in use, while in summer they are slid open sheltering the café visitors from the wind. The windbreak runs in parallel with a foot passage across the terrace used in both directions throughout the year. The glass gives a view of both the Polytechnic buildings and, in the opposite direction, of the open countryside, the crowns of deciduous trees, and, far away, the remote peaks of the Alps.
The idea was to create a rhythm on the glass partition to be complimentary with the existing architecture while reflecting the fine colour scheme of the open landscape in the distance. I opted for a fairly diminutive rhythm of the individual layers of undulating lines and mixed four white glazes gently toned with red, blue, yellow, and green. On each glass I painted two pairs of layers which were perpendicular so that each glass had four off-white layers, each layer toned with a different colour. On each subsequent glass the perpendicular directions were rotated by a fifth of a right angle so that when the sheets of glass are folded, one behind another, the result is a whitish, transparent monochrome. When slid open the whole surface of the glass partition is reminiscent of lacework.