Safe_sorry_pavilion – BERT THEIS ARCHIVE

EUROPEAN PENTAGON SAFE & SORRY PAVILION, 2005

Steel, semi-transparent glass, wood, metallic structure
Pavilion: 5.64 × 10.94 × 9.73 m
Platform: 0.30 × 27.15 × 12.60 m

Technical conception: in collaboration with Rob Engel

Permanent installation, Place de l’Europe, Luxembourg (since 2007)

Produced in 2005 as a temporary installation for the roof of BOZAR Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, in the context of the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the EU, 2005 and relocated to Place de l’Europe in Luxembourg in July 2007 as part of Trans(ient) City, curated by Hou Hanru for Luxembourg and the Greater Region, European Capital of Culture, 2007

Collection Ministry of Culture, Luxembourg

European Pentagon Safe & Sorry Pavilion

BOZAR Palais des Beaux-Arts / Brussels

Installation view / 2005

This pavilion takes the shape of a pentagon built from steel and semi-transparent glass sitting on a wooden platform…. The ﬁve walls and the roof consist of letters forming a text that can only be deciphered from inside the pavilion…. The words safe and sorry are derived from the turn of phrase “better safe than sorry.”

The pavilion was ﬁrst installed on the roof of the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels on the occasion of the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2005.

A small, translucent and vulnerable European Pentagon made up of the words safe and sorry, it obviously invites spectators to reﬂect on the international political situation.