Winter/ Hörbelt
Rotating Shelters

The structures function as resting and meeting places where one can relax and enjoy the peaceful surroundings. They also offer protection against the wind and rain while encouraging social interaction. As a passer-by, you can enter the pavilions and sit on one of the benches. Moreover, the walls, which are manually operated, can be turned from the outside so that the positioning of the entrance constantly changes. As a result, you can choose your own view: either facing the other pavilions or facing the opposite direction; either facing the sun or avoiding the wind and rain.

The pavilions are made of a special combination of galvanized steel and transparent colored resin, produced through a complex process that the artists themselves developed. When the sun shines on the walls, it produces an intense color spectrum and when it becomes dark, the pavilions are lit up from the inside. In doing so, they seem to glow and shimmer while defying gravity, a quality that is similarly demonstrated in many of Winter/Hörbelt’s other works.

Plastic crates
Wolfgang Winter and Berthold Hörbelt gained international recognition for their use of plastic crates originally intended for bottled water. In becoming part of a structure, these everyday objects prove themselves to be an amazingly functional building material that is light and air permeable. Consequently, Winter and Hörbelt erected elegant pavilions - made up of thousands of stacked-up crates - all over the world, thereby blurring the boundaries between sculpture and architecture. Finally, after the structures are dismantled, the crates are returned to the manufacturer.

Social impact
Besides the visual effect of the works, the artists also attach great importance to their social impact as these structures often bear public and social functions. For example, during the Skulptur Projekte Münster in 1997, their works functioned as information booths while in Japan, they designed a ‘hang out’ for young people and, lastly, during a visit to Berlin in 1998, Winter & Hörbelt developed the Lichtspielhaus, a structure (made up of 2600 plastic bottle crates) that functioned as a movie theater. Indeed it is this atmosphere of meeting, discussing and enjoying that Winter and Hörbelt have recreated in Leidsche Rijn for the project Parasite Paradise in which they took part in collaboration with SKOR. For this project they proposed a new version of the Lichtspielhaus, which could be used for lectures, theater productions and dance performances. For more information, please visit: www.skor.nl/artefact-1475-nl.html