The Silent Porter

History of the work

At the end of the Kirchenfeld bridge, north-west of the Kunsthalle, stands a slender object of stainless steel, aluminium and concrete: 'Der stille Portier' (The Silent Porter) by Florian Dombois, made in 2006. According to the artist's description it measures 25 by 25 by 75 centimetres and was realised with Urs Gehbauer of Bern. The city's data describe it as a seismograph of steel and concrete.

The principle is simple. A concrete cube with 15-centimetre sides rests on steel balls and can move sideways. Because of its inertia it shifts slightly relative to its base when the ground shakes; this movement is passed on to a long vertical needle, which then swings. The device needs no electricity; its energy comes from the ground alone. Dombois chose the empty base of a former lighting mast of the old bridge as its site.

Why here? According to Dombois, the bridge passes its vibrations on to Helvetiaplatz, and every heavy vehicle, trams and buses, sets the ground moving; the leverage is greatest at the bridgehead. The Kirchenfeld bridge of 1883 swayed from the start: according to Wikipedia, trotting horses in particular used to cause vertical oscillations, and in 1913/14 it was reinforced, partly so that it would sway less. The artist links this to a question about measuring technology: does a seismometer need a recorder and a clock at all?

Florian Dombois was born in Berlin in 1966 and studied geophysics and philosophy in Berlin, Kiel and Hawaii. Since 1999 he has turned seismic data into sound. From 2003 to 2011 he was a professor at the Bern University of the Arts, where he set up the Y Institute for transdisciplinarity, and since 2011 he has been teaching in Zurich, at the city's University of the Arts. In 2010 he received the German Sound Art Prize. Wait a moment for a tram to cross the bridge and you can watch the needle swing.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (offene Daten) · Florian Dombois: Der stille Portier (artist website) · SIKART: Florian Dombois (Katharina Holderegger) · Wikipedia (de): Florian Dombois · Wikipedia (de): Kirchenfeldbrücke