Olafur Eliason: Scent Tunnel

by Vanessa Hirsch, Thomas Worm, Olafur Eliasson (Artist)

Visitors to the Autostadt automotive theme park in Wolfsburg, Germany, have recently been treated to a walk-through living greenhouse, a breezeway whose walls are made of rows of potted plants, open from April to September. The rack that holds the pots in place is openwork, and structurally speaking not unlike the one under Jeff Koons's Puppy, but Eliasson goes one step further by inviting viewers to move through the inside of the piece, and by animating it to rotate around them, pouring out seasonal scents. Eliasson's goal, realized here with great success and to great acclaim, is to bring viewers into a verdant, flourishing space. This petite, elegant hardcover documents the Scent Tunnel project and follows it through a full season, listing the flowering times of its plants and considering the work and its olfactory elements from both scientific and art-historical perspectives.

128 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 2005