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Architecture

Rumbling prototypes

Published

Three students in front of and on the "Libelle".

In a block seminar, architecture students have built devices that look like machine prototypes. They are not practical - they fulfill a different purpose.

In the "Tinguely 2.1" block seminar in November, 16 students were faced with the task of collecting suitable scrap parts and welding them together into machines in the metal laboratory. The model for this is the Swiss painter and sculptor Jean Tinguely, who is considered one of the founders of kinetic art with his idiosyncratic, wobbling and whirring machines.

According to the builders, this is a dragonfly with the scientific name Odonata Mechanicus Non Volare.

"The students learned a lot about materials and material behavior," says Prof. Dr. Helmut Hachul, who led the seminar with research assistant Daniel Horn. It was also a creative change of pace for the students, which they all really enjoyed.

The Haushaltinator 3000 aims to be a comprehensive solution for the household.

The machines do not have to work well. On the contrary, they are supposed to wobble, eject and rattle. The students have given their constructions imaginative names and an imaginative context. "At its core, it's poetry," says Prof. Dr. Helmut Hachul with a smile in his voice.

In this installation, several sound sources reinforce each other.

It was not the first Tinguely construction seminar. Prof. Hachul: "We sometimes do this when we have the feeling that we need to break out of this overly pragmatic way of thinking." Architecture requires the ability to walk around with alert eyes and see possibilities even where you don't expect them. Prof. Hachul is more than satisfied with the results: "Everything was really created within a week. The students did an excellent job."

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