Flower pot stadium

FOR FOREST at Wörthersee stadium in Klagenfurt

Littmann Kulturprojekte

Klagenfurt

8 September 2019 marks the opening of FOR FOREST – The Unen­ding Attrac­tion of Nature, a tempo­rary art inter­ven­tion by Klaus Litt­mann and Austria’s largest public art instal­la­tion to date. Brin­ging toge­ther art, nature and archi­tec­ture in an unpre­ce­dented way, this monu­mental art inter­ven­tion sees the trans­for­ma­tion of Wörthersee foot­ball Stadium in Klagen­furt into a native central Euro­pean forest, with almost 300 trees, some weig­hing up to six tons each, carefully installed on the exis­ting pitch. FOR FOREST is open daily, free to access and on view until 27 October 2019.

Inspired by The Unen­ding Attrac­tion of Nature, a drawing by Austrian artist and archi­tect Max Peintner (b. 1937) that Litt­mann disco­vered almost thirty years ago, FOR FOREST finally brings that vision to life.

Climate

Rallying in support of today’s most pres­sing issues on climate change and defo­re­sta­tion, FOR FOREST aims to chall­enge our percep­tion of nature and ques­tion its future. It seeks to become a memo­rial, remin­ding us that nature, which we so often take for granted, may someday only be found in speci­ally desi­gnated spaces, as is already the case with animals in zoos.

Over­seen by Enea Land­scape Archi­tec­ture, the forest is composed of a diverse range of species such as silver birch, alder, aspen, white willow, horn­beam, field maple and common oak. Once trans­planted the forest will take on a life of its own, chan­ging colours as the season turns and attract wild­life.

Experience

Wörthersee Stadium is Austria’s most modern stadium, and was offi­ci­ally opened in Klagen­furt in September 2007. It is the home of SK Austria Klagen­furt, a league 2 club Second league club with an average atten­dance of 1,000 visi­tors.

Seating up to 30,000 spec­ta­tors, the surroun­dings of Wörthersee Stadium drama­ti­cally shapes the visitor expe­ri­ence. From 10am until 10pm daily, audi­ences will expe­ri­ence a unique panorama of trees, day and night, under natural light or by flood­light. Encoun­tering FOR FOREST will trigger a multi­pli­city of responses and emotions, and depen­ding on the time of day or night the trees will form an ever-chan­ging land­scape. This capti­vating panorama will pave the way for a whole new perspec­tive and under­stan­ding of forests.

 

After the event
After the free art inter­ven­tion at the stadium ends on 27 October 2019, the forest will be carefully replanted on a public site in close proxi­mity to Wörthersee Stadium at a scale of 1:1 and remain as a living ‘forest sculp­ture’. Parallel to this, a pavi­lion is planned in order to docu­ment the project for the long-term.

FOR FOREST is the trigger for a vibrant programme of related satel­lite events and exhi­bi­tions across the city of Klagen­furt.

FOR FOREST was made possible thanks to Swiss private supporters, contri­bu­tions in kind, as well as tree spon­sor­ship.

That was us.

Project data and compa­nies involved

Landscape architect

Enea GmbH  
Buech­strasse 12
8645 Rapperswil-Jona
Switz­er­land

 

Address

Südring 207
9020 Klagen­furt am Wörthersee
Austria

Installation

Litt­mann Kultur­pro­jekte
Spalen­torweg 13
4051 Basel
Switz­er­land

Photos

Gerhard Maurer
UNIMO

Stadium architect

Albert Wimmer ZT-GmbH
Flach­gasse 53
1150 Vienna
Austria

 

Text

FOR FOREST

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