Perforated Discs

History of the work

In the schoolyard of Schwabgut school on Keltenstrasse, three round discs of coloured concrete, pierced with holes, lie and stand. Nika Spalinger made them in 1998. According to her own project description, two discs lie at an angle and one stands upright; they are yellow, blue and red, and each is surrounded by nine circular concrete elements that relate to it. She gives the dimensions as 5 by 0.2 metres.

The work came out of a competition held by the municipality of Bern. The city's register calls the pieces play sculptures, and Elisabeth Gerber discussed them under that term in 2001 in a book on art in architecture. They were made in the year in which the complete renovation of the school, carried out from 1996 to 1998, was completed.

The school itself was built in two stages: the secondary school and gym in 1959–1961, the primary school and connecting wing in 1965–1967. The architects Werner Küenzi, R. Kiener, O. Kissling and Hans and Gret Reinhard designed the buildings as concrete frames with façades of concrete elements. The complex forms the centre of the large Schwabgut housing scheme, built between 1965 and 1971 for more than 3000 residents; the building inventory calls it the largest housing development in Bümpliz.

Nika Spalinger, whose full name is Veronika Spalinger, was born in Lausanne in 1958 and lives in Zurich. SIKART presents her as a painter, sculptor and action artist; since 1994 she has taught at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Design & Art. A year before the Lochscheiben she had designed a paved access path for the Museum of Music Automatons in Seewen, its pattern modelled on a punched card. In the schoolyard, it is worth looking through the holes of the upright disc.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (offene Daten) · Wikipedia (de): Schwabgut · Nika Spalinger: Lochscheiben (Kunst und Bau) · Nika Spalinger: Lochband, Museum für Musikautomaten Seewen · Nika Spalinger: CV · SIKART: Nika Spalinger · Bauinventar Stadt Bern: Keltenstrasse 37–43 · Bauinventar Stadt Bern: Baugruppe Schwabgut · Wikimedia Commons: Betonplastiken-Ensemble Lochscheiben (Nika Spalinger 1998)