This Meditative Art Installation is Meant to Aid Healing

Inselspital Bern in Switzerland has been in operation since 1354. But Anna-Seiler-Haus, the new main building by ASTOC Architects and Planners, GWJ Architektur, and IAAG Architekten that’s named after the woman who established the hospital hundreds of years ago, bowed last summer, and it features a very 21st-century intervention. Hanging in the 80-foot-high atrium is Loops, an installation by SpY and Studio Banana that’s named after its two dozen large, kinetic circles.

Each 5 feet in diameter, their inner rims fitted with LEDs, the aluminum rings suspend from steel cables that feed into a winch, allowing each round to change position independently. The changes are courtesy of a computer-programmed choreography that periodically adjusts the tempo. “Mornings and evenings, the movement is calmer, but during the day, the pace picks up,” says architect Ali Ganjavian, founding partner of the multidisciplinary Studio Banana. “It’s inspired by the cyclical movements of nature,” architect and cofounding partner Key Kawamura notes. “As the viewer moves amid the atrium’s five floors and the sculpture shifts,” Spanish artist SpY adds, “infinite shapes are created and a new artwork is discovered.”

Evidence suggests that art, as part of a holistic hospital design, is beneficial to health, so the hope is that Loops and its meditative qualities will help improve patient outcomes. In the meanwhile, every hour, the rings synchronize and indicate the time with gentle pulses of light.