Natural processes are repeated daily without our knowing exactly what is happening. Do we have a sudden moment of insight when looking at the morning mist or a rainbow, do we know why a drop falls of a leaf at a particular time, and not a moment earlier or later? Unfortunately, being uncertain does not always trigger a thirst for knowledge. Even the most watery problem can sometimes seem too dry, and the chemistry and physics that could explain it are much too complicated.
Expertise
Art and Fountains
Location
Gelsenkirchen, Germany
Collaborators
Architects: PASD Feldmeier & Wrede Structural Engineers: IPP Polonyi & Partner
Consultants: Institut für Strömungswissenschaften, FH Konstanz, Max Planck Institut Göttingen
Client
Bundesgartenschau 97 GmbH
Timeline
Planning and Design: 1994 – 1996
Construction: 1997
Site Area
47 ha / 116 acres
Status
Completed
* This project was originally produced by Atelier Dreiseitl under the leadership of Herbert Dreiseitl. Since its merger in the year 2013 with the Ramboll Group A/S these projects and the copyrights are owned by Ramboll.
Herbert Dreiseitl demonstrated phenomena involving water in the Ruhr city of Gelsenkirchen as part of the Federal Horticultural show in 1997, his intention was to engage and fascinate easy-going people of this kind as well. He found the ideal setting for his experiment in showing water in all its states in a cooling tower that had been left standing at the Nordstern pit.
The spectators stood on a glass mezzanine floor, and the development from mist to a cloudburst was played out before their eyes, with every step in the process accompanied by gigantic slide projections.
Veils of rain and drizzle dance in an air-current in the illuminated cooling tower
Spectators on the stand looking up as if spell-bound, something is going on …
Every sense was working overtime as first of all their was nothing to be seen in the dark interior of the cooling tower, and then only indirect light, with a bank of mist moving ponderously into position in front of it. Turbulence on the periphery made shining droplets form dancing figures. Slides of foggy landscape thrust into this moving image.
A circular eddy starts to rise from the depths of the cooling tower.
Vapour, mist and smoke remind us of natural and industrial phenomena in the Ruhr.
The Dreiseitl studio was able to repeat the performance in the IBA presentation year, 1999. The city of Gelsenkirchen wanted to find a longterm operator for the tower – until it was destroyed by arsonists in autumn 2000.
