After a filling lunch of strudel in Innsbruck, we drove about 20 minutes outside of town to Swarovski's Austrian headquarters, known as Kristallwelten. Here we encountered the famed Chambers of Wonder, which are by far the most magical and mystical things I have ever seen. I tried my hardest to document their unique beauty, but it was hard to do it all justice.
To get to the Chambers of Wonder, you enter through an entrance hidden beneath The Giant. Multimedia artist André Heller created a world of wonder to celebrate Swarovski’s hundredth anniversary in 1995. Heller’s thematic centerpiece for Swarovski Crystal Worlds was the shape of the Giant. And he developed the story of a Giant who set out to experience the world and all of its treasures and wonders. With this knowledge, the Giant settled down in Wattens/Tyrol, where he has watched over his Chambers of Wonder ever since.
Reece was super excited when he discovered he shared the same name with The Giant.
The original principle of these Chambers of Wonder is based on the historical chamber of wonders in the castle of Ambras, which was a sixteenth-century attempt to assemble a universal collection of all knowledge known at the time. In the Chambers of Wonder at Swarovski Crystal Worlds, internationally and nationally recognized artists, designers, and architects have interpreted crystal in their own unique ways. They create concepts of space and experience from the sparkling material.
There are 17 chambers:
Blue Hall
Mechanical Theatre
*Crystal Dome
Silent Light
Into Lattice Sun
Ready to Love
Ice Passage
Transparent Opacity
Chandelier of Grief
*Studio Job Wunderkammer
La Primadonna Assoluta
Eden
FAMOS
55 Million Crystals
Heroes of Peace
El Sol
Timeless
While it's hard to choose favorites, I put stars next to the names of the Chambers I might choose as favorites, but I loved them all!
Their subject matter ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous. The first chamber we toured through, the Mechanical Theatre, was one of the ridiculous ones ...
The desire for transformation and fantasies is a force that affects human beings – and the machine-driven world of Jim Whiting. His “Mechanical Theatre” combines humans and technology, the bizarre and the aesthetic in a fashion show out of the ordinary. Protagonists are an Adonis and a “Walking Woman”, who represent the relationship between man and woman. Rigid objects suddenly spring to life, as clothes fly and dance through the air as if by magic.
The laws of gravity seem to be suspended and objects make movements that they should not be able to make. This creates an eerily beautiful scenario that provides plenty of scope for your own fantasies.
The Crystal Dome
The dome of the Crystal Dome was modeled after Sir Richard Buckminster Fuller's (1895–1983) geodesic dome, whose architectural design perfectly reflects the principle of geodesy. Geodesy is the scientific discipline devoted to geographical measurement and representation of the Earth; in mathematics, it designates the shortest path between two points on a curved surface.
Geodesic domes are particularly stable, especially considering the relatively small amount of material used to build them. The dome of the Crystal Dome consists of 595 mirrors that create a special depth effect and give the viewer the feeling of being inside a crystal. Eight of the mirrors are so-called “spy mirrors” that conceal fascinating art objects by various artists
Silent Light
At the center of “Silent Light” is the eponymous, spectacularly sparkling crystal tree by designers Tord Boontje and Alexander McQueen, who created it in 2003 for the foyer of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; it was later moved to Swarovski Kristallwelten (Swarovski Crystal Worlds). Its 150, 000 sparkling Swarovski crystals, which Tord Boontje uses to create a complete Chamber of Wonder, evoke images of a bone-chilling cold and yet heartwarmingly romantic winter wonderland.
Into Lattice Sun
For “Into Lattice Sun”, South Korean artist Lee Bul looked to modern architecture as her muse, translating it into a metropolitan, dramatic, and utopian landscape for the Chamber of Wonder. Lee Bul’s encompassing installation explores the interactions between visitor and space. Myriad crystals and mirrors give the Chamber of Wonder the spatial illusion of ever new vastness and depths, inviting visitors to think about themselves and their position within the space.
This deliberately staged interplay of the continually changeable, iridescent mirror landscape enables the visitor to discover all of its facets from the most diverse perspectives. The deeply symbolic bridge that leads us through this fascinating landscape of crystal and mirrors intensifies the visitor’s spatial experience
Ice Passage
At first glance, Tyrolean artist Oliver Irschitz's “Ice Passage” is an empty corridor; it does not come alive until you step inside. As you place your foot on the floor, a series of crystalline tracks start to appear, precisely revealing the path you have taken. The lights also trace these tracks, allowing the viewer to get sporadic glances into the surrounding world of glistening ice. The more visitors dare to venture in, the brighter and more luminescent the surroundings become, and the denser the tracks on the floor appear.
Each step that the visitor takes is accompanied by mysterious and sometimes alarming creaking and crackling – just as if you were actually on a frozen surface, with each step causing small fissures in the ice.
Transparent Opacity
“Transparent Opacity” by Arik Levy is an homage to the diversity of crystal. The title of this work already embraces both of its apparently contradictory aspects: its transparency and its impenetrability. The room installation is both a game with the most diverse array of materials – from glass, marble, and steel to synthetic 3-D prints – as well as a play on shapes and sizes.
Some of the exhibition pieces invoke the familiar silhouette of the cut chaton, while other works reach deep into the abstract realm of natural, archaic crystalline shapes. Additionally, visitors can interact with the space and become involuntary co-creators of the piece by virtue of their diversity. This interrelationship becomes utterly dynamic in the “Interactive Arena”, which captures and reflects each and every movement.
Studio Job Wunderkammer
For the Studio Job Wunderkammer, the eponymous designers used none other than the term “Chamber of Wonder” itself to draw inspiration. Long ago, chambers of wonder were small curiosity cabinets that held a collection of scientific exhibits; today, the term signifies a wondrous, strange, all-encompassing spatial experience. Indeed, in the Studio Job Wunderkammer – the only Chamber of Wonder in Swarovski Kristallwelten (Swarovski Crystal Worlds), by the way, with no corners – everything revolves around the holistic experience of the space.
Colors, shapes, composition, and concepts invite the visitors to make their own discoveries. What at first looks like a fairground brimming with exuberant color is in reality thousands upon thousands of short stories in the shape of movement, music, reflections, and slight allusions to modern society.
Eden
The idea behind the Eden Chamber of Wonder is to create a landscape that evokes one of the strongest primal responses in man: the forest. But Eden is no ordinary forest – it is a fantastical, archaic primeval world. At its entrance, a waterfall, filmed in the surrounding Alps, cascades down a screen and is reflected by the walls, while the roar of the water permeates the entire Chamber of Wonder, creating a wall of background sound. Inside, the visitor follows a path that meanders through a dense wilderness of simple polished brass structures, which through mirrored walls appear to go on to infinity.
Within the depths of this dark forest, the wanderer encounters strange, hidden gems in the form of the biggest crystals Swarovski has ever produced. They emerge as beacons of light from the dark, like strange, exotic birds, reptiles, flowers, or fruit, symbolizing the magnificence of nature and the origins of life.
FAMOS
In FAMOS, the Russian artist duo, Blue Noses, with their notorious, madcap performances, meets Swarovski’s legendary art of cutting crystal. Four architectural landmarks are on display in a crystalline dimension that has yet to be surpassed: the Taj Mahal in Agra, the Pyramid of Cheops in Giza, the New York Empire State Building, and the Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow.
The Cheops Pyramid alone weighs 231 pounds, and the Empire State Building consists of 386 individual parts. Subtle, humorous home videos are revealed inside the exhibition pieces only by viewing them from above. The crystalline splendor is placed in contrast to the tongue-in-cheek videos by the Blue Noses. Grandeur is put into perspective through clever humor.
Some of the Chambers of Wonder are switched out periodically and new chambers are designed and installed. Since I visited in September 2017, 4 of the chambers have been reimagined and they added a whole new one. It's an ever evolving, magical landscape which makes it exciting for returning visitors. Thus, I don't have the names or descriptions for these next two chambers. We will all have to use are imaginations to create our own interpretations of them, as I don't remember what they were ...
Timeless
The Timeless area tells the history of Swarovski and crystal in all of its historical facets. An exciting exhibition that ranges from the company’s founding to magical moments on the stage, screen, and runway juxtaposes curiosities and glamour with nostalgia, history, and technology.
“Timeless” here means that we should forget our own time as we experience the changing spirit of the times from 1895 to the present day and observe epoch-making exhibits. The architects and museum designers at HG Merz were responsible for creating this narrative flow in cooperation with
the Swarovski Corporate Archive.
This is the largest hand cut crystal in the world. It has 100 facets and is 310, 000 carats!
The magic and wonder didn't end when we excited the chambers. The "gift shop", is home to the world’s largest collection of Swarovski products. It is a unique opportunity to buy items that are exclusively available in Wattens, Austria.
There were numerous "art stages" throughout the store that were just as enchanting and whimsical as the Chambers of Wonder, they were designed by fashion designer Manish Arora. These art stages are also changed periodically, I have seen some that were designed for the winter season and their theming were all around the Northern Lights.
We got to the store right as they were closing, so sadly (or perhaps it's a good thing) we didn't have time to actually look around. The workers were nice to let us walk to the exit slowly so that we could at least see some of the magic the store has to offer.
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