The kinetic architecture of Jean Tinguely’s culture stations

Abstract

Between 1959 and 1968 kinetic artist Jean Tinguely made a series of proposals for large-scale kinetic sculptures to be situated in the urban environment, titled Dylaby (1961), Lunatour (1959–1964), Tiluzi (1967), and Gigantoleum (1968). In these works, Tinguely engaged kinetic movement to collapse the distinction between the artwork, audience, and setting, and create interactive platforms for cultural activities that took shape as kinetic architecture. This article analyses Tinguely’s ‘culture station’ projects together for the first time, and their significance for architecture amongst the arts. It analyses them in relation to the development of movement as an operative concept in modern art and architecture, and in the discourse for a synthesis of the arts that emerged in the wake of World War II, focusing on the significance of kinetic movement in this history. It argues that the culture stations exemplify an underlying tension in the way movement was embraced as both a condition of modern experience, and as a specific quality of artistic mediums. The culture stations contribute to an understanding of how the idea for a synthesis of the arts played out beyond the immediate post-war period, and intersected with the institutionalisation of popular culture in the 1960s. As cross-disciplinary artefacts, they have ongoing resonance in relation to the changing spatio-temporal comportments of the spectator-cum-participant in art museums, and the role of institutions in shaping the relationship between art and architecture.