Andrea
Gassner

The work of Andrea Gassner and Atelier Gasser is a demonstration of deeper spatial conception. In the search for what is suitable and new, the formal event, it repeatedly creates a pictorial language that touches us, which at times can even “scratch” or be intractable. Often moving close to the boundaries of experimentation, of the playful, of the apparently “non-functional” or of a different kind of “usefulness”, it provokes the perception and participation of the reader, user and visitor.

Her work is the result of intensive research work, in-depth cultural study, precise observations, continuous series of experiments, tests and prototypes and, ultimately, of persistence in detail design. At the beginning, however, is always the direct interest in the subject. This is where Andrea Gassner always starts – at the first moment. From here she determines the area of activity and the rules; from here she goes into greater depth, bringing the complex sense of things to the surface, in order ultimately to arrive at a beauty that is deep, tangible and visible.

Architect Alberto Alessi, Zurich

It is above all the unerring way in which she devises and implements dizzyingly daring concepts of a kind that only few designers could convince their clients to use. In a single day Andrea Gassner magically installed a forest in the large columned hall of the Austrian Parliament. She spanned a huge banner below the hall’s light-flooded glass ceiling so that, looking from below, one saw treetops in their original size. “This is the first time one can really breathe in this building” said the President of the Austrian National Council upon entering the ‘forest’ in the hall. “Absolutely breath-taking”, is what I say as a colleague! Andrea can give order to chaos, she can create a cool warmth and can even harmonise nature with modernity. She does not loudly proclaim what she does but her work is heard and seen far beyond the borders of Austria. 

AGI Austria, Elisabeth Kopf (sponsor)