pascal dombis prints line-curved shapes on glass bridge underside in france

pascal dombis and gil percal’s permanent artwork called ‘ligne-flux’ is a large printed glass underside of a footbridge, linking two buildings of the newly national school of architecture in strasbourg, france. the printed pattern is a proliferation of thousands of line-curve shapes that through the use of an organic growth algorithm makes them repeat endlessly and at various scales. it employs randomness in color, so that each line-curve has a unique hue, producing a vibrant visual effect as one walks under the bridge. the artwork ‘ligne-flux’ creates dynamic spaces that offer another kind of mapping in which networks, connections and flows come into play.

‘ligne-flux’ operates visually as the virtual energy center of the newly national school of architecture whose energy flow symbolically radiates on all the surrounding urban space. to echo this flow, the artist pascal dombis employed a line-curve shape as the main geometric element. it is based on the excessive stretching of a line similar to the stretching of a bow string and it pushes the principle of false straight lines and genuine curves to its utter limits. this simple element connects with many items in art and philosophy history, like lucretius clinamen, leibniz baroque, einstein curved space or the latest string theory.

artist pascal dombis and architect gil percal collaborate regularly on public art projects. ‘ligne-flux’ was commissioned by  french ministry of culture, as part of the 1% scheme under which 1% of any new public building construction budget has to be set for a public artwork creation.

project info:

location: national school of architecture, strasbourg (france)
architect: marc mimram
artists’ team: pascal dombis (artist) and gil percal (architect)
technique and size: footbridge under face, digital ceramic ink print on 3-componant glass panels
size: 9.00 x 2.50 m (total size with 7 panels)

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: juliana neira | designboom