Josef Bernhardt: Warten auf Vögel VII – Innen und Außen
Factsheet
Format: Art in architecture/Outdoor installation
Location: 1220 Vienna, Seestadtstraße
Architecture: Köb & Pollak Architektur/Alexander Schmoeger
Created: 2010/2012
Artist: Josef Bernhardt (*1960 in Eisenstadt, lives and works in Vienna and Forchtenstein), www.josefbernhardt.com
Info/Scope: With five giant nesting boxes, Josef Bernhardt created “awareness” of the ground-breaking ceremony for BUWOG’s construction project; colourful and human-sized, they can be seen as a permanent installation in the courtyard of the structure’s BOA component. The work thematises the relationship between man and nature in the city as well as the change of perspective when beholding art.
Dimensions: Multi-part sculpture made of wood. Nesting boxes: 2.40 x 1.36 m (2010); human-sized version (2012)
Building dimensions: The BOA component encompasses 64 apartments.
Josef Bernhardt: Warten auf Vögel VII – Innen und Außen / Waiting for Birds VII – Indoors and Outdoors
Josef Bernhardt’s series of works vary every time, remaining true to the relationship between man and nature as an underlying theme. To mark the ground-breaking ceremony for “Oasis 22”, the artist installed massive nesting boxes in a classic form and enlarged tenfold. Some of them were five metres high, in the hope that cavity-nesting birds would settle there; those at ground level invited visitors to step inside to view the scenery from the nesting box and become an active part of the work of art. In 2012, BUWOG once again cooperated with Josef Bernhardt: three floating red and white, human-sized nesting boxes are permanently displayed as Waiting for Birds VII – Indoors and Outdoors in the courtyard of the BOA component. Since 2018, the nesting boxes have been located on the access road to Seestadt.
The architecture by Köb & Pollak Architektur/Alexander Schmoeger won the Property Developer Competition for BUWOG in 2008 with the impressive rooftop gardens and other features; BUWOG (with two other property developers) won the Austrian Builders’ Award in 2013 and the Vienna Housing Award in 2015 for the project.
