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1992-1995 ROCK CUT

Material: Rock cut
Dimensions: length approx. 200m.
Finnish Road Administration (Finnra)
Länsiväylä motorway, Otaniemi interchange, City of Espoo, Finland

The work, located along the motorway opposite the Nokia Headquarters, comprises a 200-metre-long rock cutting as well as a series of boulders, protective fences, walls and lighting. The boulder installation is a kind of memory trace of the changes that have occurred in the landscape. The rock mass was removed with the so-called 'precision-blasting method', which involves examining and estimating the expected directions in cleavage of the rock. Both artistic and technical solutions had to be made simultaneously in regard to the relation between different types of granite and in order to estimate the consequences and possible negative effects of the detonations. The aim was to create a rock art and environmental totality that takes into account the essence of the rock on the site and its visual meaning, and to add life to the landscape that 60, 000 vehicles pass by each day.