Special spaces that tell stories

By T.J. McNAMARA in Europe

Art is often about space. The Renaissance developed perspective so the picture plane would dissolve and the objects in a painting take on three dimensions in a created space.

The Renaissance created some great spaces in another sense. In Padua, Giotto painted the walls and ceiling of a little chapel and created a wonderful space. The most famous space in the world is the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo which attracts so many visitors to Rome.

Yet in these famous spaces it is still the stories on the walls, the paintings themselves, that hold the attention.

There is a specially modern sort of space, often classified as an installation, where the volume enclosed is significant in itself. I have visited three such spaces in three European cities which produce strong responses - though the reaction is significantly different in all three.

The first is the great Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern on the South Bank of the Thames. The gallery and the Millennium Bridge that leads to it have become popular attractions, and because the building was once a power station, the turbine hall provides a vast space running the full length and height of the building.

At present it is occupied by a work by the Danish sculptor Olafur Eliasson. Across the immense roof he has laid mirror tiles so the ceiling is one gigantic mirror which apparently doubles the height of the space. On the end wall hangs a huge, hovering golden circle. The walls are veiled in the gentlest of mists that floats diaphanously up towards the circle so it becomes the sun rising or setting through vapour. Since it is the east wall it is probably rising.

The sun holds your attention as you enter the enormous space but when you look up you see the multitude of visitors to the hall as tiny objects with a circle of head and an oval of shoulders, as if seen from a great height.

The immediate reaction is to try to identify yourself and your place on the floor. It is not easy since the mirrored ceiling has, in effect, doubled the height of the hall. Most people resort to stretching out their arms or waving until they spot themselves.

Many are tempted to go further. They lie on the floor and look up. They spread their arms. They link up in groups and make star shapes. Some even picnic on the floor.

These are entertaining games and make the space special but the lasting impression is of the immense sun rising through mist in a wide grey landscape. The whole piece is evocative of the landscape of northern Europe; it is a creation that has many levels of response.

A second fascinating space happens to have another work by Eliasson as part of its first exhibition. It is a series of spaces under one huge canopy at the new Kunsthaus, the modern art museum in Graz, Austria.

It is truly remarkable. From the outside it looks like a large, beached, bright blue whale. Its curved surface is made up of semi-transparent plates with the fastening made plain and studded with lights, particularly on the underbelly. On top of the structure is a group of light wells with an organic shape. They extend out of the structure but are moulded into its surface.

One strictly horizontal element is attached to this dome. It is a high platform enclosed in glass that enables visitors to look across the river toward the hills that enclose Graz.

The architects were Londoners Peter Cook and Colin Fournier and the work took only two years to build.

The interior is a remarkable space that flows through three levels under the curved taut skin that is the structure's interior layer. Stairs are hard to find and rather than escalators there are moving ramps between the levels.

The visitor is always aware of the nature of the structure and of being in a curved space. The interior can be divided by low walls and the opening exhibition featured work by artists who specialise in paintings and sculpture where elements move or are suspended or play optical tricks.

The work by Eliasson was called 360-degree Room for All Colours, a large circular structure with only a small entrance. Once inside you were completely surrounded by soft-coloured light, which constantly changed, modifying first the tone of the colour and then shading into a different colour in an unpredictable sequence.

Like the museum, it was a unique space though unlike the museum it was fascinating only when you were in it. From the first glimpse to the final look back, the Kunsthaus was truly amazing.

Emotions quite different from amazement are evoked by a special space in the Jewish Museum in Berlin, a structure which contains many unsettling elements. The architect, Daniel Libeskind, has designed it so the windows are more like wounds and give little light. There are two long, narrow corridors, each called an axis, the floors are not level and the staircases they lead to are steep and toilsome.

At the end of one axis is a space which you enter through a pivoting door that shuts with a slam. The featureless walls are cold, steel-hard and windowless. They are tall, angular and mercilessly enclosing. Only one thing is visible, an inaccessible ladder that leads nowhere. The temperature is deadly cold. It is terrifying.