Client: Berlin Brandenburg Airport

Overview

In 2012, Californian artist Pae White’s “The Magic Carpet” won the public competition for art in public buildings for the Berlin-Brandenburg airport. The initial design culminated in a metal “flying carpet” measuring approximately 1,000 m² and weighing 4.5 tons.

A large part of the metalwork was done directly in the “carpet weaving workshop” that was specially set up for the purpose in the airport’s check-in area. The assembly team used 13,000 m of color-coated 0.3 mm aluminum ribbon to weave a unique metal carpet with artistically curving ornaments. Over 10,000 screws and 130,000 rivets were used. The carpet was woven during the day and the finished sections raised aloft piece by piece and installed during the night.

Goals

The work embodies the motif of the flying carpet, which itself comes with all sorts of associations. In the airport, it acts as a membrane between the known and the unknown, reality and imagination, memory and hope.

THE Magic Carpet engages the (long lost) fantasy of mystical magical travel. It resembles a giant handmade drawing rendered in ribbon-like metal. The symmetrical grid-like architecture offers a perfect backdrop for this massive organic artwork that appears to be unraveling in space.

Process

Medium:
powder coated aluminum

Dimensions:
4" x 121’ x 82’