TRANSLATIONER

Göteborg, Sweden
2025–2030
Public art

The artwork Translationer takes its starting point in the recently demolished Per Dubbshuset, which was Sahlgrenska hospital’s oldest building. The expansion of the hospital is an investment in the future of healthcare and a translational research environment, whose purpose is to convert new knowledge and methods into better care. The facade commission at street level involves an approximately 70-metre-long facade along the new ambulance hall, where many people will pass. The artwork reuses copper sheeting from the roofs of demolished hospital buildings on the site, both the previously unexposed backside and the patinated side, whose verdigris has developed naturally over a long time in contact with its surroundings.

The profiles that creat a continuous, undulating form, stem from the historical building’s original drawings by architect Axel Kumlien from 1896, as well as profiles traced by conservators from the building’s interior. In this way, memory and the past become part of the future. What is beautiful about copper as a material is that it is mutable and carries aspects of time and space. Copper is an element that changes with its age, its context, and its place — something we also imagine as associating with our human lives. Copper also has the ability to conduct energy and heat, which can metaphorically be connected to human care and compassion.

Collaboration between Studio Max Gerthel and artist David Svensson for Region Västra Götaland.