A summary publication in which the members of OBSERVATORIUM collected their reflections on the ideas, uses and lessons of their body of work on the interface between architecture, sculpture and landscape. Over the past twenty-five years, OBSERVATORIUM has produced an internationally important oeuvreKey issues are the creative process, integration in changing (urban) landscapes, public participation and imagination. The result is a book full of inspiring examples of the power of art in the public realm.

An observatory is a place for the observation of the universe – the artists of OBSERVATORIUM cast their gaze upon the inhabited world. They have created works of art that are not only to look at, but also to enter, observe and reflect from. OBSERVATORIUM produced an internationally significant body of work, from the monumental sculpture Zandwacht (Sand Watch) in the Port of Rotterdam to Dwelling in Seclusion, a work of art devoted to solitude in New York.

The panorama is always and everywhere around you. If you stand still and slowly turn on your own axis, you become the pivot of the world and you know exactly where you are. OBSERVATORIUM is fascinated by cessation. Observation presupposes standing still. A single uninterrupted minute of standing still and looking around will sharpen your view of the world. In some places in the world, the paradoxes of our society will reveal themselves and you can see a panoramic view of the Anthropocene.

Sometimes the recent genesis of a place OBSERVATORIUM is invited to tells the history of humankind in a nutshell. Such a place has mythical potential. Even the briefest summary is already dramatic and appeals to the imagination: a city boulevard that comes to a dead end forever after the abrupt end of communist urban design, a wasteland covered in bomb craters that after 30 years of postponing decisions becomes a protected nature reserve. Strangely, the course of things only becomes visible when it is explained in words. The challenge is to put the artistic imagination in the service of the visualization of the drama. How can a work of art outdoors tell as much or more than a myth? How does the spatial rupture remain visible despite the artistic addition? One of the great challenges of public art is to make history and secrets visible.

The OBSERVATORIUM archives contain boxes and books with notes, photographs and sketches. Really surprisingly, people say little about the space of the work of art, but rather describe the phenomenon of the passing of time in it. The lack of space or of the luxury of private space in one’s personal life is apparently less important than the lack of time or of the luxury of private time.

Sometimes the strength of a sculpture lies in its eloquence, in its capacity to speak to us. That’s why people are sometimes surprised when OBSERVATORIUM’s constructions disappear after a few weeks, months or years. They overlook the fact that temporariness is often dictated by the commissioner. Commissioners use temporary installations to test the potential of a place or to draw attention, or audiences. OBSERVATORIUM likes to call such works ‘built proposals’. They are models of possibilities.

OBSERVATORIUM loves to build on local stories before drawing and calculating an architecture or a work of art. Sometimes, the first step is the publication of a fairy tale or a short story that dramatically introduces the situation and the challenge. Another time, a story is written in advance and the audience performs the acts as it moves through a staged site. In both cases, the result is a metaphor that clarifies the story of the place and to which everyone can contribute as a protagonist.

Management and maintenance are key for good, sustainable public space that generates social values like commitment, ownership and joy. The least you can do is caring and maintaining, it’s the first step of sustainability of public space and making sure next generations have a say too. Civilization is maintenance.

Public art is for public life. Public life is what happens in connection with places. When you design for public life, you not only turn to the geography and history of a place, but you also consult the people who live there, use the space intentionally and have ideas about it. This presupposes that user and designer invite each other, develop generosity with an eye to the realization of a generous city. Who wouldn’t want to live in a generous city?

How do you create images of a future that everyone can and wants to embrace? How do you capture an exciting panorama in a drawing, one that makes people say ‘Now I see what I want, although I didn’t know that I wanted it’?

Each work is ultimately an invitation to observe the world, other people, and yourself. Our works are semipermeable sites offering a window on the world, hence the name OBSERVATORIUM.

In all of OBSERVATORIUM’s projects, the invitation is a means as well as an end: come work, come sleep, come eat, come study, come perform, come sit and do nothing or share your thoughts here: something new is about to happen here, and by being present, you can set the tone at the kick-off.

OBSERVATORIUM doesn’t think it’s a disaster if people are unable to interpret their works of art, by the way. The works are sanctuaries to look at, experience, observe and use in your own way. That’s what it’s all about, as they explain in this book: observing yourself and the world around you with wonder.