VENICE ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE
The work “CLOUDSCAPES” by Tetsuo Kondo
exhibited at the 2010 Architecture Biennale
This work gives substance to the ancient fantasy of walking in the clouds: a spiral steel walkway leads us into a thick cloud of vapour continuously manufactured by an invisible machine.
Cloudscapes is the title of the installation presented at the Corderie dell’Arsenale for the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2010, for which we collaborated with the artist in its realization A real cloud that visitors could approach from underneath, from the middle, from above, thanks to a walkable ramp that screwed into the space. To see how it is possible to change space and be changed by it.
“Clouds are important elements of our atmosphere, framing outer space and sunlight. They are the visible part of the earth’s water cycle, bringing life-giving water from the oceans to the earth. (…) The ability to touch, feel and walk through clouds is a concept elaborated from many of our fantasies. Looking out of aircraft windows, high above the earth, we often daydream of what it might be like to live in this ethereal world of fluffy vapours’i”
EXCLUSIVE SOLUTIONS
AND CUSTOMISED
The structure is 60 meters long and 4.3 meters high, consisting of thick calendered tubular steel made of transportable elements and assembled on site, supported by small square columns tied to the Arsenal pillars and onto which we welded the walkway made of sheet metal cut into shaped segments. The parapet is made of solid rebar with anti-fall netting.
The difficulty of the work, apart from the construction and assembly, which is entirely welded and without bolts, lies in respecting the artist’s intention of extreme lightness while guaranteeing stability and safety.