Tyre-fitting Workshop | Art gallery

INTERACTIVE COMMUNICATION SURFACE

This tyre-fitting depot, close to Zurich city centre, is situated on a site between a railway station, a bus stop and the main access road into the city and is surrounded by a semi-industrial periphery, with petrol stations, 24-hour shops, nightclubs, factory outlets and start-up companies of every kind. As a result, a never-ending stream of people moving in and out of the city pass by the site.

This continuous movement served as the inspiration to turn this otherwise nondescript tyre-fitting workshop into a strong visual communication channel – the entire first floor façade was developed as a 4-sided, 200-square-metre interactive communication surface. Sponsored by tyre manufacturers, young artists are given the opportunity to challenge the limits of art by taking their work out of the gallery and placing it into a commercial, fast-moving environment.

The building acts as a drive-by gallery for passing vehicles and trains and engages even more powerfully with pedestrians waiting for buses or trains. Challenging the conventional frontiers of art and commerce, it has become a landmark of contemporary cultural identity.