Rainbow Station
©Studio Roosegaarde

DAAN ROOSEGAARDE OPENS ARTWORK ‘RAINBOW STATION’ AT AMSTERDAM CENTRAL STATION

On the 11^th of December, artist Daan Roosegaarde will open a large-scale light artwork at the Amsterdam Central Station, in the presence of the Minister of Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands and Amsterdam's deputy mayor. The artwork is launched in honour of the -by NS and ProRail- renovated 125 year old historic station. The artwork connects the historic station by architect Cuypers with the innovation of today. The light and colour offers travelers a magical moment in the evening. Every year approximately 50 million people travel through Amsterdam Central Station, towards national and international destinations.

Posted 12 December 2014

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Rainbow Station can be seen every day for a whole year for a brief moment within an hour after sunset at the east side of the station. Daan Roosegaarde "Rainbow Station creates a unique place for travellers, an experience you can not download". "This innovative and colorful artwork adds atmosphere to the monumental station, it is a great gift to our travellers," said Patrick Buck of ProRail and Timo Huges of NS.

Rainbow Station ©Stidio Roosegaarde


In collaboration with astronomers of the University of Leiden, Roosegaarde developed a lens projector that unravels light efficiently into a spectrum of colours. Scientist Frans Snik of the Leiden Observatory: "Thanks to new liquid crystal technology that we are developing for research on exoplanets (planets orbiting stars other than the sun), Rainbow Station takes the exact shape of the 45-meter wide historic station roof".		Rainbow Station ©Studio Roosegaarde


The celebration of the 125th anniversary and the metamorphose of the railway station was the inspiration for Roosegaarde to make the artwork. The work also marks the international ‘Year of the Light’ by UNESCO in 2015. Rainbow Station is made in collaboration and with support of the Amsterdam Fund for the Art, NS, ProRail, Stichting Doen and his own Studio Roosegaarde. Recently opened Roosegaarde the Van Gogh-Roosegaarde cycle path between Nuenen and Eindhoven, inspired by The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh. This path creates, just like Rainbow Station, an interaction between light and poetry.		Rainbow Station ©Studio Roosegaarde


Rainbow Station ©Studio Roosegaarde		The celebration of the 125th anniversary and the metamorphose of the railway station was the inspiration for Roosegaarde to make the artwork. The work also marks the international ‘Year of the Light’ by UNESCO in 2015. Rainbow Station is made in collaboration and with support of the Amsterdam Fund for the Art, NS, ProRail, Stichting Doen and his own Studio Roosegaarde. Recently opened Roosegaarde the Van Gogh-Roosegaarde cycle path between Nuenen and Eindhoven, inspired by The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh. This path creates, just like Rainbow Station, an interaction between light and poetry.


Testing at Studio Roosegaarde ©Studio Roosegaarde		For Rainbow Station Studio Roosegaarde used the same technologie (and team) that will do important and new instruments that will also be implemented in the European Extremely Large Telescope (launched last week): http://www.eso.org/public/videos/eso1440a/ The European Extremely Large Telescope, or E-ELT for short, will be by far the largest optical and near-infrared telescope in the world. In early December 2014 the ESO Council gave the go-ahead for the first construction phase of the telescope. https://www.studioroosegaarde.net