52weeks.rickyberkey.org52 weeks of Columbus, Indiana

↓Architectural Terms Columbus History Timeline exploring an unexpected . unforgettable community! Home About Columbus About this Blog About ME Videos Columbus Visitors Center Post navigation ← Older posts Week 9 (Chaos I” – sculpture by Jean Tinguely) Chaos I Built: 1974 Restoration: 2010 Location: Inside The Commons – 300 Washington Street Artist: Jean Tinguely Chaos I” is a large kinetic sculpture by Swiss artist Jean Tinguely located inside The Commons in downtown Columbus. The work was commissioned by J. Irwin Miller, his wife Xenia and his sister Clementine Tangeman to be a focal point in the public space called The Commons which was adjacent to the indoor shopping mall that was originally called the Courthouse Mall all designed by Cesar Pelli. It was part of a major downtown redevelopment program starting in the late 60’s. The shopping mall and the public space opened in the early 70’s and the sculpture was installed in 1974. Most of the shopping mall itself has now been demolished and replaced by office buildings and the community space where Chaos stands has been completely rebuilt with the sculpture staying in the same place throughout the transformation period. Pelli had envisioned a large sculpture to act as a focal point of the Commons, a place for people to meet and greet. He created the vast community space next to the shopping mall as a modern indoor version of an Italian piazza. He thought the space needed a giant toy”, a whimsical clock-like structure that would be intriguing to both children and adults. He envisioned it as a meeting and gathering place for people coming downtown. He convinced J. Irwin Miller to commission a work by Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely who was well known for creating large scale kinetic sculptures around the world. Pelli was especially impressed by a Tinguely work in Zurich, Switzerland called Eureka” that bears certain similarities to our Chaos. The Miller’s and Clementine Tangeman reportedly paid $130,000 for the sculpture as a gift to the city What resulted was Chaos I”, a 30 foot tall, 30 foot at its widest point, 7 ton structure that was fabricated mostly of scrap material found in and around the local area. The sculpture moved, changed and made noise in a seemingly random manner throughout the day. Initially it had what has been defined as 13 different functions that moved over 50 individual components with 12 different motors, including a function that once pivoted the entire sculpture 70 degrees at the base. Over time several of the movements were disabled particularly the pivoting of the base which was deemed unsafe both to the sculpture itself and the public walking by. Tinguely himself wanted it to appear rickety as if something might fall off at any given moment. Tinguely considered it to be one of his best works and described it as: Life is movement. Everything transforms itself, everything modifies itself ceaselessly and to try to stop it seems to me a mockery of the intensity of life.” Pelli saw it as a modern version of the clock in a traditional town square. Although residents were skeptical at first, it gradually became a beloved icon to most of Columbus. A shallow water-filled moat surrounds the sculpture pedestal which of course became a wishing well with adults and children alike tossing coins in around the base of Chaos. Sometimes a childs first instinct is to jump into the very shallow pool and try to recover a coin or two but it only takes a quick adult lesson to convince them of the joys of wishing. The name of the sculpture came from the fact that Tinguely saw the adjacent playground as Chaos #2.” Tinguely apparently didn’t put a lot of effort into choosing the name but he did always refer to his machine as a she”. When asked about the name, Tinguely just shrugged and said, the name will do.” Pelli wanted to the sculpture to operate in a consistent manner like a clock while Tinguely insisted that it be completely random in its movements. What resulted in its original configuration was having the sculpture cycle through a series of motions that simulates a day in a life, beginning slowly at first, adding movements as it builds to a noisy, even angry crescendo and then winding down again at the end of the day. It was described as having a Jekyll and Hyde” personality so visitors could experience it sometimes as being calm and peaceful with only a few functions working and other times with all of them working at once becoming a noisy, angry, clanging and yes chaotic machine. As originally programmed in 1974, it was meant to have all elements running around 12:00pm and 6:00pm with lesser operation of various elements throughout the rest of the day. This was also the default programming of the restored Chaos along with the ability to set up different daily scenarios as desired or to shut it off completely by remote control if an event is taking place in the space. Tinguely’s original intention was to produce the sculpture in Paris and have it shipped to Columbus but after several visits he decided to do all the work here. It seems he had developed a genuine affection for the people and the local culture in Columbus. He was known to enjoy consuming American meals of steaks and french fries at local restaurants and spent many of his evenings in local bars, particularly the Columbus Bar on 4th Street across the street from the Commons. He enjoyed walking the downtown streets and was sometimes seen driving around the area in a tan Ford pickup. He spent nearly two years off and on in Columbus working on the project. Tinguely was an unusually colorful character by normal Columbus standards with his walrus mustache, busy eyebrows and was often seen wearing a colorful neck scarf. While in Columbus Tinguely’s affairs were handled by the Irwin Management Co. and he and his assistants stayed in a house they provided him on Youth Camp Road. Chaos was fabricated from new and scrap material much of it purchased in or from the Columbus area. He spent a considerable amount of time in Columbus gathering materials and constructing Chaos. Tinguely was reportedly quite impressed with the high quality of our scrap metal supply! The scrap metal came from the then downtown Kroot Corp. scrapyard as well as the former downtown city dump. A large bearing used on the base came from the Southern Machine Co. and many of the spinning metal shapes were created by Noblitt Fabricating. The original 12 motors, gear reducers and electrical supplies were supplied by the Daniel-Hayden Electric Co. Verl Mauzy, an electrical engineer with Daniel-Hayden Electric Co. designed and built the control panel that enabled the sculpture to be programmed or to be turned off entirely. 7 of the 12 motors were manufactured locally by the Reliance Co. The project was constructed at the old Columbus Pump House/Senior Center building which had been recently vacated by the Southern Machine Co. Tinguely and his assistant Josef Sappi” Imhof worked with local craftspeople to gather materials and construct the project and then moved it in pieces to the final site in the Commons. Tinguely was 47 at the time Chaos was constructed and he had created at least 400 prior kinetic sculptures. At that point in time, Chaos was his largest work and he considered it to be his very best. The entire sculpture is mounted on a substantial steel base resting on a concrete pedestal with a 1/2′ thick layer of cork between them to minimize vibration into the rest of the building. Four very large nuts and bolts anchor the lower platform of the sculpture onto the base. It is surrounded by a moat with a shallow pool of water. A large flat piece of curved steel is the primary vertical element onto which all the other various pieces attach to. Some have criticized the new Commons space as being too confining for the giant sculpture but the upper parts of Chaos can now be closely viewed on three sides by the new mezzanine surrounding it on the upper level. The final...