Periscope

History of the work

On the outer wall of the older classroom wing of the Sonnenhof school, on the courtyard side, a slender blue tube is mounted: a periscope. Natsuko Tamba Wyder made it as an art-in-architecture commission. According to the artist, it is made of painted stainless steel and mirrors and measures 400 by 50 by 50 centimetres. The lower opening is outside in the courtyard at a child’s eye level, the upper one inside in the corridor.

As in any periscope, angled mirrors guide the view around a corner. The artist built the tube so that it works in both directions, though: from below to above and from outside to inside, and the other way round. Before developing her design she asked the pupils to fill in a questionnaire. She chose the blue because most of the children named it as their favourite colour.

The occasion was the school’s extension. The complex had been built from 1948 to 1950 as the Burgernziel school. In 2004 the Biel practice spaceshop won the competition for a new east wing, which was built in 2005/06. Tamba Wyder was awarded the art project in 2005; it was inaugurated at the celebration marking the school’s opening on 28 April 2007. The city’s register gives 2006 as the year, the artist herself 2007.

Natsuko Tamba Wyder was born in Otsu, Japan, and has lived in Bern since 2000. She studied in Kyoto, in London and in Cardiff, where she completed a master’s degree in ceramics, and then at the art academies in Karlsruhe and Düsseldorf, where she became a master student of Christian Megert in 1998. In 2003 she received the Aeschlimann-Corti grant of the Bernische Kunstgesellschaft, and in 2005 she had a solo exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Bern.

Look into the lower opening on site and you see into the school corridor. Only a few steps away, by the stairs up to the playground, sits the granite “Güggel” (rooster) that Bernhard Luginbühl made for the same school in 1955.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (offene Daten) · Natsuko Tamba Wyder: Werk 16 (Periskop), Website der Künstlerin · Natsuko Tamba Wyder: Text zu Werk 16 (PDF, Einweihung 28.4.2007) · Natsuko Tamba Wyder: Biografie · Bauinventar Stadt Bern: Jolimontstrasse 1 (Schulhaus Burgernziel/Sonnenhof) · Wikidata: Periskop (Q83303630) · Wikimedia Commons: Installation Periskop (Natsuko Tamba Wyder 2007)