The Station Atelier (1993)

The Station Studio

The train arrives in Zermatt. Look to the left. We are passing the industrial zone. There we see the Heinz Julen Atelier. An almost Art Nouveau metal structure is standing on concrete body.

At the side is a two meter stack of wood of various types and sizes, behind which a metal inscription is hidden: Heinz Julen’s Studio. The former Gornergrat mountain railway station has been salvaged by Heinz Julen. Inside, everything is intact, from the frame of the building to the enamelled sign covered in dust, still bearing the inscription “Gornergratbahn”. Everything has been left as it was, time has left it’s mark and no-one would dream of effacing it: the encrustations, the dust and the rust tells a story, delivering a message: times passes and life leaves it’s traces.

Workers bustle about, assemble chandeliers, machine-finish wood for chairs and benches, all surrounded by a pell-mell of objects in different stages of completion which Heinz Julen refines and corrects.