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The
viewer is greeted by an exposed structure built out of bamboo
canes of varying thickness in the shape of a zeppelin airship.
Nine triangular-shaped trusses support the weight of this "skyplace".
The body of the ship consists of a series of paired, overlapping,
hexagonal rings arranged in four different sizes. The hexagonal
rings are placed in a row, perpendicular to the ground at intervals
of two metres, forming a long cylinder. The rings are connected
with bamboo canes, which form the horizontally-lined ribs of the
airship. The sculpture is further stabilised by two diagonal bamboo
crossbeams fastened to each of the rings. The first and last segments
consist of thin, slightly curved pieces of split bamboo
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A
14m long publicly accessible footbridge spans the interior of the installation
at a height of 2.5 metres above the reflective water of a Balinese ricefield.
Tali bamboo is used
for the frame of the object and split pieces of Petung bamboo for the
outer covering. In order to prevent infestation of the bamboo canes
by insects, sugars and starches were removed from the material by bathing
it in large pools of 7% borax solution for a period of three weeks.
Like the dome constructions
of Buckminster Fuller, Markus
Heinsdorff has made innovative advances with his overlapping
honeycomb structures. These have been built on location by Balinese
and Torajan craftsmen under the architectural direction of Wolfgang
Widmoser, an Austrian artist, architect and Bali resident of fifteen
years experience with Torajan traditional bamboo construction techniques.
Connection
techniques
Bamboo canes connected end to end are held together using bamboo stakes
and internally positioned bamboo strips. Overlapping canes are fastened
together with nylon string and diagonal joints are secured in place
using moveable steel parts.
Material
Bamboo is one of the oldest and most environmentally friendly building
resources known to human kind. It is one of the fastest growing plants
with one of the longest fibres. It has a tensile strength six times
that of steel and has survived nuclear attacks and ice ages. Classified
as a species of grass, it can reach a diameter of 10 to 14 cm - and
in tended forests up to 30 cm. The canes of certain species reach a
height of up to 20 m, others grow at speeds of up to a meter a day.
A lightweight material, symbol of Eastern philosophies, martial arts,
and the Torajan people, its strength is its flexibility.
Engineer Otto Frei used a picture of a Torajan bamboo bridge on the
cover of his book as the epitome of elegant architecture possible within
our given laws of physics. Though used in sophisticated designs by the
intuitive Torajan engineering intelligence for a thousand years, bamboo
has only recently been rediscovered in contemporary art and architecture.
Twenty years ago, the building master Buckminster Fuller constructed
a large bamboo dome in Bali, giving new breath to bamboo as a building
material of the future as well as of the past. Columbian architect,
Simón Vélez, constructed a bamboo pavilion at the 2000
Expo in Hanover and the Italian star architect, Renzo Piano, displayed
various experiments of newly devised connecting techniques in his Berlin
exhibition. Austrian architect Wolfgang Widmoser has distorted space
with bamboo to create beautiful buildings in Toraja and Bali, including
the Gaya
Ceramic Studio where bamboo and a double curved tent have completely
replaced steel as a building material.
