Cities, with their wild, uncontrolled unexpectedness, have always been great sources of what British writer Alastair Bonnet refers to as the “geographical imagination”. With the ever increasing standardization of building culture, including the building of cities and their open spaces, these sources of inspiration have come under fire. Our projects look to reveal the magical and unforeseen, imbuing open space with what might be considered a geographical re-enchantment.

Swiss law newly requires the construction of sound screens where noisy streets pass residential areas. In 2014, Studio Vulkan won a competition for artists to design an 800m long sound screen at the western entrance to the City of Zurich. The city initiated the project as an attempt to re-compose the National Highway Authorities’ (ASTRA) standard wall design into a more inspiring element.

The design, currently in development, reinterprets this heavy duty urban infrastructure and its typically negative associations into a catalyst for the imagination. A variety of etched glass panels reframe, blur, and abstract imagery of the surroundings. Reflected light, both natural and artificial, casts and juxtaposes this specific imagery onto the glass panels like an ephemeral, moving painting in real time, continuously telling a sequence of site-specific stories. Each moment displays a new combination of colours, textures, phenomena and movements.