WEST

WEST is a glass balustrade that stretches around three sides of the central hall of the St Lucas Andreas Hospital (SLAZ) in Amsterdam. It forms a screen between the staff restaurant on the first floor and the public space of the hall below.

The photographic elements are extracted from photographs of the area around the hospital in Amsterdam West taken from a helicopter and on the ground. The coloured planes are derived from a topographical map of the area. In our passage along the screen from Rembrandt Park on the left and Erasmus Park and a sports field on the right, we move through vertical shots and bird’s-eye views of this part of the west of Amsterdam in 2002. Passing along different planes of colour we see cut-out pieces of Sloterplas (lake), railway tracks, Amsterdam Docks in the distance, SLAZ under construction and major building work near the A10 motorway in Bos and Lommer.

West was commissioned as part of the transformation the hospital underwent when the St Lucas Hospital at this location merged with Andreas Hospital, now demolished.
The balustrade is 45 m long and 0.95 m high and was commissioned by Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst.