Outdoor stage, manual production

Collective initiative by TEN Association, Zürich, and City Creative Network, Skopje

Built

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2015

Riverbank of Vardar, Skopje, Macedonia (FYROM)

2 m x 20 m x 6m

Painted steel profiles and treated fabric

Co-Author

Lukas Burkhart, Alexa den Hartog, Dejan Dinevski, Milan Dinevski, Damjan Kokalevski, Aurel Martin, Guillaume Othenin-Girard, Luka Piskorec, Nicolas Rothenbuehler, Karl Ruehle, Darko Krstevski, Yves Seiler, Nemanja Zimonjic

Sofija Bakalova, Jonatan Egli, Lucas Enzo Bucher, Iskra Filipova, Lukas Fink, Demjan Haller, Diandra Germann, Lukas Herzog, Ilcho Ilievski, Elena Jovanovska, Lazo Lazarov, Emilija Lelifanovska, Sandra Mojsova, Anne Marie Nagy, Monika Petrov, Micha Ringger, Martin Ristovski, Mirjam Schenk, Mihajlo Stojanovski, Jan Zurcher

Ivana Angelova, Ana Boranieva, Elena Dinovska, Gligor Dubrovski, Erina Filipovska, Jasna Stefanovska, Milos Stokuca, Neven Kostic, Christian Gork

Architectural Faculty of Skopje (AFS), Prince Claus fund for Culture and Development (PCF), City of Skopje, Ministry of Culture of Republic of Macedonia. GTA/ETH Zürich, Prof. Philip Ursprung, Skopje Fair, Balkans Arts and Culture Fund (BAC); as part of the project ACT4CITY

Nautilus is a thoroughfare, a passage to the river, a place to sit alone and read, a playground for children, a platform for talks and readings, and a stage for performances, concerts, shows and happenings of various sizes. The structure is built to accommodate a singular user, or hundreds at a time. It invites appropriation by any group wishing to stage an event in the city of Skopje. Nautilus has no client and no owner. It was initiated, conceived of and made by the people who built it as a gift to the city, but it belongs to everyone. It is a collaborative work of young architects, artists, builders and craftsmen. The 20 meter long primary structure of Nautilus is constructed over and around the stone embankment wall, but does not touch it. It is built entirely out of steel and clad in strategic locations with a woven and painted textile developed especially for the project. The textile is used as a frame for the site, a projection surface and a delineator of different spaces of transition within the otherwise rigid repeated steel structure. On the riverside, it rises 6 meters above the bicycle path, presenting a tall screen to the water upon which images can be projected, but on the road side its height remains modest and unimposing, inviting discovery and inhabitation. Forming part of a knowledge exchange within the project, a group of 10 architecture students from Switzerland together with another 15 students from Skopje helped to realize and construct the structure in August 2015, in conjunction with the core project team.

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