Industrial charm meets a riot of color: Maya Rochat's ‘Language of Color’ in the ML/FHK building
In the presence of the artist Maya Rochat, her multi-part series ‘Language of Color’ was inaugurated as art in architecture in the machine laboratory and district heating power plant (ML/FHK) of ETH Zurich. The installation was created by the artist especially for ETH Zurich.
The renovation of the ETH Zurich's Machine Laboratory and District Heating Power Plant (ML/FHK) building complex also included the awarding of a contract for art in architecture. Artist Maya Rochat, born in Morges in 1985 and now living in Lausanne, impressed the jury with her idea for the ‘Language of Color’ work sequence. The multi-part installation was inaugurated on 29 May 2024 in the ML/FHK building complex in the presence of the artist.
Rooms of the Student Project House and D-MAVT even more vibrant
The work extends across several locations in the ML/FHK building, including the Student Project House (Clausiusstrasse 16) and the rooms of the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering (D-MAVT). Rochat's art interacts with the industrial charm and the concrete of the renovated buildings. Depending on where the viewer looks at the respective artworks and how the light falls on them, the partly transparent color surfaces change and thus gain liveliness and fluidity. Nothing seems fixed any more.
Rochat thus opens up the spaces ‘for the as yet unmanifest, the future’, as she says herself. ‘In this sense, the artist's work reflects the basic principles of the Student Project House, in which the coming together of different disciplines should always inspire something new,’ says Linda Sch?dler, Head of Graphische Sammlung ETH Zurich and member of the ETH Art in Architecture Committee, which selected Rochat as the winning project.
Photos of the event
Enabling islands of inspiration
The various large-scale interventions, including in the Student Project House, connect the different rooms through their color and shape compositions and further enliven the creative space for students and the D-MAVT premises. ‘The various works of art – from the carpets to window paintings and murals – form a course with their different islands of color in the building, which should offer space for relaxation and inspiration,’ Sch?dler explains the artist's idea. Rochat intends for the islands of color to create moments in the students' everyday lives where they can find time to dream and give free rein to their creativity. In this way, the winner combines art and everyday life.
People walking past the building on Tannenstrasse can also enjoy part of the work of art from the outside. ‘Through the Magic Glasses’ can be seen on the front entrance. Here, 28 windows become a fresco with punctual plays of light depending on how the daylight falls from outside. The incidence of light casts colored reflections onto the floor inside the building.
Changing structures created
‘New printing possibilities have given me the opportunity to create unique pictorial experiences. That's why I use different print layers and processes to create changing, i.e. mutating structures,’ explains the artist. For the expansive artworks, which were created in 2022 and 2023, Rochat superimposes her motifs in layers, which she created using experimental printing techniques. Some of her works have been on display in the building since 2022.
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