Oliver Hein

"Blue Cube"

A light installation for the Central Bus station, Rosenheim, Germany 2002

Height 3.20m, 7 m x 3.40 m, glass, acrylic glass, blue LEDs

`The forgotten cube´

The electric transforming plant in Stollstraße, Rosenheim remained as an urban relic from the sixties in the building site of the central bus station. In the city´s `memory´ it always had been that concrete block everybody had several times walked past but never taken any notice of: A noman´s-land between traffic jams and urban life that very few people had ever seen from inside. In reality enormous quantities of energy flow through this block, the transformer supplies the town centre with electricity. This piece of architecture seemes to bear a secret.
The light installation brings this well known and yet forgotten building back into the city life and raises questions about it´s presence, it´s function and it´s aesthetical qualities. The changing appearance of the same object by day and by night from a large ice cube in the middle of town to a semitransparent blue colour space keeps this secret alive. Seen from the distance it now looks like a blue landmark in the traffic, the formerly nameless power plant became a new meeting point in the city.