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The art programme for the Strasbourg tramway
The art programme
For Catherine Trautmann, former Minister for Culture and Communication
and former Mayor of Strasbourg and President of the Strasbourg Urban
Community, "Public transport is an especially effective means
of increasing people's awareness of the art of their time and an
outlet for contemporary art distinct from the traditional venues."
['Cultures et Transports Publics', report of the Paris conference
organised in September 1998 by France's Groupement des Autorités
Responsables de Transport]
The choice of art works for Line A was supervised by Jean-Christophe
Ammann, who took discretion as his underlying theme: "In museums
people see art as a spiritual experience. Art in the public arena,
on the other hand, fills a specific need so well that it can afford
to be extremely discreet; when all our projects have been completed
people may end up wondering just where the art works are, since
their very appropriateness will have made them such a discreet presence."
For Line B the choice was aimed at making the tram a playfully poetic
form of transport, one symbolic of the city of tomorrow. It was
overseen by Christian Bernard, whose basic idea was "to establish
a connection between artistic styles and clear social and urban
functions", while approaching art "in terms of public
use and not merely as public space" ['Les Dernières Nouvelles
d'Alsace', October 1999].
As a result, most of the works chosen are neither decorative nor
monumental, and in most cases cannot be totally grasped at first
glance.
Line A
- To get to know the tickets designed by Gérard Collin-Thiébaut,
you have to take the tram several times.
- To read the texts provided by OuLiPo and set at the top of
Jean-Michel Wilmotte's columns, you have to continue on from one
stop to the next. [The OuLiPo group was founded in 1960 by French
writer Raymond Queneau, its focus being "the pleasures, diversions
and complexities of overcoming self-set literary hurdles"]
- To understand what Jonathan Borofsky's work is all about, you
need to know that the 'Woman Walking towards the Sky' on the Place
des Halles in Strasbourg has a male equivalent in the city of
Kassel, in Germany.
- To grasp the multiple meanings of the work by Barbara Kruger,
you have to scrutinise the Gare (Station) stop in its entirety:
the artist has used everything - steps, platforms, advertising
hoardings and so on - as surfaces for her texts and images.
- To fully appreciate Mario Merz's 'Fibonacci Suite' between
the rails of the tramline, you have to cover the 1.3 kilometres
separating light boxes 1 and 987. [Mario Merz's work no longer
exists in this form. However, it has been 'reactivated' at the
Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg, where a 'Fibonacci
Suite' is displayed on the skylight visible from the interior
of the building.]
Line B
- To follow the caustically witty playlets outlined by Alain
Séchas' large-scale colour drawings in the top windows
of the columns at each stop, you have to make the trip from one
end of Line B to the other. The presence of a 'cat bather' more
than 4 metre 50 tall on the banks of the Aar is also due to Alain
Séchas, who has created other cats elsewhere in the form
of drawings or sculptures.
- To appreciate the originality of the 24 compasses scattered
through the tram stops by Jean-Marie Krauth, you have to guess
that by distinguishing the north from an enigmatic 'elsewhere',
they turn Strasbourg into something other than just a central
city.
- To exchange glances with all Nicolas Fauré's photo-portraits
of workers on Line B, you have to follow the itinerary laid down
by the hoardings. [Work shown on site for a month from the tramway
opening date, and also at the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and
Contemporary Art.]
- You actually have to be in the tram to hear Rodolphe Burger's
'Vox Populi'. This recording of a hundred anonymous residents
of Strasbourg announcing the stops is a reminder of the city's
cosmopolitan character.
- A night ride on the tram is the best way to see the beacon
included in Siah Armajani's 'Gazebo', the 13 metre high pavilion
at the Elsau stop. By day this is a new meeting point for local
residents, with tables, benches, chairs and barbecues.
- As its name indicates, only pedestrians can cross Siah Armajani's
Simmel Footbridge. 60 metres long and 3m 50 wide, the footbridge
straddles the River Ill and opens up the 'Cité de l'Ill'
by linking it with the tram stop.
- Strollers who take Jean-Marie Krauth's sculpture avenue along
the edge of the university campus will find themselves reminded
of the 1960's, when the neighbourhood came into being and Hans
Arp's three sculptures were installed. A bold series of 18 red,
yellow and blue plinths make this a thoroughly modern project
echoing the surrounding architecture and its rigorous use of right
angles. Among the sculptors called on to join Arp here are Gilioli,
Zadkin, Pan, Etienne-Martin and others.
- A handy new meeting place will be Jean-Luc Vilmouth's Bar des
Plantes, a little glass and metal building at the Alt Winmärik
stop that will also be a flower shop. The site is at the entrance
to the Grande Ile de Strasbourg, not far from the main railway
station.
- Situated at the République stop, Bert Theis's 'Monument
to the Living' is a splendid counterpart to the superb monument
to the war dead in the centre of the Place de la République.
It also offers a place to sit down and take a break near the Théâtre
National de Strasbourg.
- With the creation of Zaha Hadid's 'multimodal stop' at the
North Terminus, Hoenheim - part of the Strasbourg Urban Community
- becomes a thoroughly modern gateway to the city. Parking for
600 cars and 50 bicycles, a tram and bus station and a shop cover
in all 25,000m2, in a structure based on the 'fold' principle
Zaha Hadid is so fond of.
The tramway, project context
Since 1989 the city of Strasbourg and the Strasbourg urban community
have been working on a sustainable development-based urban transport
policy. The aim is to meet current needs while taking those of future
generations into account and establishing a balance between economic
development, social evolution and environmental considerations.
The policy's emphasis is on intermodality and interlinked organisation
of different transport modes with the tramway as its basis.
The main phases:
- 1989 Choosing of the tramway as a non-polluting means of public
transport and a tool for urban redevelopment.
- 1991 Establishment of a study group for the Line A art programme,
chaired by Michel Krieger, municipal and Urban Community councillor,
and organised by Jean-Christophe Ammann, director of the Frankfurt
Museum of Modern Art.
- 1992 Creation of a new Urban Transport Plan aimed first and
foremost at excluding automobile traffic from the central city
area. A cultural development agreement signed with the Ministry
of Culture stipulates commissioning of art works for the Line
A programme.
- 1993 Increased policy emphasis on bicycle use.
- 1994 Promulgation of the Bicycle Charter.
Strasbourg becomes a pilot city for electric car use.
Official opening of Line A on 25 November.
- 1995 Bus and tram combine to form a single network.
Creation of park-and-ride facilities.
Extension of the cycle path network.
Christian Bernard, Director of the Geneva Museum of Modern and
Contemporary Art is charged with running the art programme for
Line B.
- 1998 Work begins on Line B.
- 2000 Line B opens in September.
- By the year 2010 Continued extension of the tram network: Improved
rail service towards the south, outer-urban tram connection to
the airport and the south-west, multimodal station at the Line
B terminus, crossborder extension into Germany.
Streetlife
The art projects, especially in the case of Line B, are to be interpreted
in terms of public use and not merely as public space. The issue
here is to relate an artistic approach to a specific social and
urban function in such contexts as a parking lot, public transport
tickets, a footbridge, a flower shop and public venues for socialising.
Thus art made accessible to all and understandable by all, and aimed
at uniting people around shared activities, will generate - and
focus greater critical attention on - an image of democracy as modernity.
Strasbourg Urban Community - City of Strasbourg
Links:
Tramway system
http://www.eltis.org/studies/52E.HTM
Tramway as a key element of urban planning
http://www.eaue.de/winuwd/76.htm
Ville de Strasbourg
http://www.mairie-strasbourg.fr/
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