Fertile Desert
The history of the ambitious Moroccan land-art works featured in this issue’s fashion portfolio “Fantastic Voyage.”
THE MOROCCAN desert’s wide-open spaces and sheltering
skies have long attracted dreamers and eccentrics. So
it was with Hannsjörg Voth, a German artist known for
grandly scaled sculptural works infused with existential
and cosmic themes. Starting in the early 1980s, the Munich-based
Voth spent 20 years creating his magnum opus, a trio of monumental
edifices on the scorched Marha Plain in southeastern Morocco.
Drawing on a mix of mathematics, mythology, astronomy and ancient
architecture, the structures include Himmelstreppe, a 52-foothigh
triangular “stairway to heaven” that houses Voth’s sculpture
of Icarus’s wings; the nautilus-shaped Goldene Spirale, based on
the Fibonacci sequence, that sits over a well where the artist once
installed a boat of pure gold; and Stadt des Orion, a citylike complex
of observation towers patterned after its namesake constellation.
A rugged 90-minute drive from the oasis
town of Erfoud, Voth’s works are defined by
their remoteness. “When you’re out there you
ask yourself, Why the hell, in the emptiness of
a desert, do you have three very articulated,
calculated architectural forms?” says Hans
Brockmann, the German film producer (best
known for The Usual Suspects) who now oversees
the sites as founder of the Voth Maroc Aïn
Nejma foundation. “It’s very strange.”
While the spiral is made of stone, the
staircase and the Orion city were built using
traditional rammed-earth construction,
and initially Voth—now 78 and in declining
health—was going to let the works disintegrate
into the desert. “As death nears, apparently, we
have a desire that something of us should stay,”
says Brockmann, who also lives in Munich
and first met the artist (“a pretty wild, difficult man”) in the ’90s
through a mutual friend. Several years ago, after Brockmann
started a Moroccan charity that’s building a school in an area near
Voth’s projects, the artist reached out to him. “He said, ‘You’re
down there. Take this—you have all the rights to it, and just make
sure it’ll be taken care of,’” Brockmann explains. But rights to the
sites themselves were sketchy at best. “It was nowhere land,” says
Brockmann, “and it took me three and a half years to convince the
government to make all of this legal.”
Thanks to the internet and social media, the works have become
an increasingly popular destination. And while Voth remains something
of a fringe figure in the international art world, his profile
could rise with an exhibition slated for 2020 at Munich’s Pinakothek
der Moderne museum. There are plans for the show to offer a virtualreality
experience of ascending Voth’s Himmelstreppe and entering
the chamber with the Icarus wings. “When you’re up there, on top
of the staircase, you have this incredible view around you,” says
Brockmann. “You are really tempted to fly away.” —Stephen Wallis
THE MOROCCAN desert’s wide-open spaces and sheltering
skies have long attracted dreamers and eccentrics. So
it was with Hannsjörg Voth, a German artist known for
grandly scaled sculptural works infused with existential
and cosmic themes. Starting in the early 1980s, the Munich-based
Voth spent 20 years creating his magnum opus, a trio of monumental
edifices on the scorched Marha Plain in southeastern Morocco.
Drawing on a mix of mathematics, mythology, astronomy and ancient
architecture, the structures include Himmelstreppe, a 52-foothigh
triangular “stairway to heaven” that houses Voth’s sculpture
of Icarus’s wings; the nautilus-shaped Goldene Spirale, based on
the Fibonacci sequence, that sits over a well where the artist once
installed a boat of pure gold; and Stadt des Orion, a citylike complex
of observation towers patterned after its namesake constellation.
A rugged 90-minute drive from the oasis
town of Erfoud, Voth’s works are defined by
their remoteness. “When you’re out there you
ask yourself, Why the hell, in the emptiness of
a desert, do you have three very articulated,
calculated architectural forms?” says Hans
Brockmann, the German film producer (best
known for The Usual Suspects) who now oversees
the sites as founder of the Voth Maroc Aïn
Nejma foundation. “It’s very strange.”
While the spiral is made of stone, the
staircase and the Orion city were built using
traditional rammed-earth construction,
and initially Voth—now 78 and in declining
health—was going to let the works disintegrate
into the desert. “As death nears, apparently, we
have a desire that something of us should stay,”
says Brockmann, who also lives in Munich
and first met the artist (“a pretty wild, difficult man”) in the ’90s
through a mutual friend. Several years ago, after Brockmann
started a Moroccan charity that’s building a school in an area near
Voth’s projects, the artist reached out to him. “He said, ‘You’re
down there. Take this—you have all the rights to it, and just make
sure it’ll be taken care of,’” Brockmann explains. But rights to the
sites themselves were sketchy at best. “It was nowhere land,” says
Brockmann, “and it took me three and a half years to convince the
government to make all of this legal.”
Thanks to the internet and social media, the works have become
an increasingly popular destination. And while Voth remains something
of a fringe figure in the international art world, his profile
could rise with an exhibition slated for 2020 at Munich’s Pinakothek
der Moderne museum. There are plans for the show to offer a virtualreality
experience of ascending Voth’s Himmelstreppe and entering
the chamber with the Icarus wings. “When you’re up there, on top
of the staircase, you have this incredible view around you,” says
Brockmann. “You are really tempted to fly away.” —Stephen Wallis
