Culur
Culur ( Rhaeto-Romanic «color») is an installation by the artist Gottfried Honegger . It consists of nine pillars painted in rainbow colors on the dam wall of the Orden retention basin and one pillar near the hamlet of Salecina near Maloja in the Upper Engadin in the canton of Graubünden .
prehistory
From 1659 to 1956, the Bergell was hit by 21 flood disasters, in which numerous bridges and houses were destroyed. From 1969 to 1971, the largest flood retention wall in Switzerland was built next to Villa Baldini in Orden to stop the floods of the Orlegna stream from the Forno valley. The dam, designed by the Maggia engineering company from Locarno, is 42 meters high at its highest point and has a crown length of 171 meters. Up to 1.7 million cubic meters of water can be retained. 50 cubic meters of water per second flow under the wall; if the flow rate increases, it is dammed.
The federal government paid most of the construction costs of four million francs. The wall is owned by the Canton of Graubünden, and maintenance is carried out by the city of Zurich's electricity company .
In 1972 the retaining wall was inaugurated, and at the same time the Salecina educational and holiday center began operations at the opposite southern end of the basin. The retention basin experienced its first major endurance test in July 1987, when the lake behind the dam wall filled almost to the maximum level within a few hours.
Project Culur
In connection with the upcoming 25th anniversary of the Salecina, the idea arose in 1995 to artistically design the dam wall of the same age. In 1996 the artists Gottfried Honegger and Hannes and Petruschka Vogel submitted designs.
After intensive discussions with people and groups, the Gottfried Honegger project was given preference. On the top of the wall, which could be walked on, there were nine columns in the colors of the rainbow as a symbol of peace and an expression of optimism . A question in Italian, Romansh and German should be placed on each column. At Salecina, opposite the wall 600 meters away, all the colors of the pillars on the wall were to be resumed in the form of a single column , as at a focal point .
The painted iron columns are around 6 meters high and around 40 centimeters in diameter. The column at Salecina consists of prefabricated concrete pipes stacked on top of one another . The pillars were installed on July 25, 1997, and the inauguration ceremony took place in Salecina on August 9. Gottfried Honegger officially handed over his installation to the “Società culturale di Bregaglia”.
“Culur” was financed from its own resources, mainly through the sale of a three-part graphic by Gottfried Honegger.
The questions
The question on the first column was formulated by Gottfried Honegger himself, the others come from guests of the Salecina Center.
- 1 .: Does art have a social task?
- 2 .: Do people have to leave traces?
- 3 .: What belongs to the people? What only yourself?
- 4 .: Where is a limit?
- 5 .: Does time change us or do moments change us?
- 6 .: Do we have too much or too little today?
- 7 .: What was we wanted to know before we fell out?
- 8 .: How many mother tongues do our children speak?
- 9 .: Where does the edge of society begin?
In a letter to Salecina dated June 24, 2014, Honegger decreed that the questions that had faded from the weather should not be renewed: "The texts have something moral to me and that is something foreign to me", was Honegger's explanation.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gottfried Honegger: Letter to Salecina . Ed .: Gottfried Honegger. Zurich June 24, 2014, p. 1 .
Coordinates: 46 ° 23 '32 " N , 9 ° 41' 35" E ; CH1903: 773382 / 140365