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Bratislava Graced with an Original Sculpture Made of Ice-hockey Pucks

Bratislava Graced with an Original Sculpture Made of Ice-hockey Pucks

What can you see – the ŠKODA logo or an ice-hockey player? It all depends which angle you look at it from. This unique sculpture – comprising hundreds of ice-hockey pucks, nearly a kilometre of steel cable, and hundreds of kilograms of iron – offers both. Visitors to the IIHF World Ice-Hockey Championship in Bratislava can marvel at this work of art.

23. 5. 2019 Lifestyle SPORTS

Dominik Medveď, one of the two artists who thought up the concept behind this attractive sculpture, says: “We wanted to combine the ŠKODA logo and a symbol of ice-hockey, so we came up with the idea of creating an object that would offer two different images from two different views.” “The idea formed quite fast. Using 3D software, we began planning how to suspend the pucks,” says Jakub Riedl, the second of the artists, as he describes the next step. Both of these young men are students at the Design Department of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava.

Jakub-Riedl
Dominik Medveď
student at the Design Department of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava
Dominik-Medved
Jakub Riedl
student at the Design Department of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava

Everything had to be precisely calculated and just as accurately drawn into the plan. “During production, the most difficult part was selecting materials, but we worked with adept colleagues who specialise in stage design,” the artists explain.

Dominik-Medved-sketch

“The plan was to use the thinnest possible cables so as not to distort the image. In this way, the viewer’s attention would be focused primarily on the pucks. We had to adapt and reinforce the whole structure to accommodate this concept,” say Dominik and Jakub.

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The design itself is a cube with sides 2.7 metres long. It weighs 400 kilograms. There are a further 19 iron bars used to suspend 361 steel cables running for an aggregate length of more than 900 metres, to which 448 pucks are attached. It took about two weeks to make the work. “We’re happy with the result,” both students are proud to say.

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Besides precisely measuring the positions of the pucks and the tensioning of the cables, another major challenge was to get the finished sculpture to the site where it was to be exhibited. Visitors can admire the sculpture in front of the Eurovea Shopping Centre in Bratislava until the end of the ice-hockey championship. “It took more than two hours to cover the six kilometres from the studio to the exhibition site,” the artists recall as they describe the transportation of the heavy, yet delicate, sculpture.

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