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Artiste créateur ATELIER SI,PB ...
ul, Ruska 46c
50079 WROCLAW
POLOGNE | |
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Décoration intérieur
Pièce unique
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During a meeting with the Mayor of Wroclaw we learnt that the City Council, aware of the role and significance of St Elisabeth’s Church in the city’s history, wanted to fund a stained-glass window in one of its chapels. We knew straight away that this offered a chance to implement the idea of our Atelier Si, Pb (its name is an encrypted description of stained glass).
When thinking about the design we first considered Wroclaw’s coat of arms, perhaps an ornament and then Get noticed a billboard with the photograph of John Paul II surrounded by countless burning candles brought by the people of Wroclaw in the final days of the Pope’s life. The billboard stood literally in front of the chapel’s window and in this way real life dictated the design’s theme. As we witnessed the flood of human emotion and the arrival of flowers and candles outside the window, we felt compelled to include this external aspect to the work, while still knowing that the interior view would also be important.
The window shows a magnified profile of John Paul II’s face, as if bowing over the flickering candle lights. The lights in shades of yellow and red symbolically refer to the city’s colours and may also resemble human figures. The priority was the simplicity of form because the main idea was to emphasise the humanity of the Pope, humbly stooping over the human fate and gazing at the light of hope, which forever burns in every human being. John Paul II’s ecclesiastical rank is discreetly hinted by the form of the window’s tracery, which forms the shape of an Episcopal mitre above His head.
The window comprises from sixteen units, the sizes of which are governed by the window stonework. The external side of each panel makes a relief drawing executed in the fusing technique. On the inside of the window there is a transparent glass latticework, which illuminates the drawing, partially reflecting and diffusing the light. This complicated technique has been devised so that the window is especially, and rather unusually, visible from the outside.
Thus it is integrated as another element in the Gothic church’s facade. |
Technique
Painting slumping and fusing, tempered float glass, glass latticework, double glazed units
Executed by Witrale Oleszczuk
Dimensions
293 x 565 cm
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