From afar, it looks like a forgotten relic of a theme park that has since picked up and moved on – but it’s actually a walkable sculpture. ‘Tiger & Turtle – Magic Mountain‘, as it’s named, rises on a dirt hill above the city of Duisburg, Germany, promising a strange adventure to those who approach.
As you come closer, you’ll see that there’s a portion of this looping, curving stairway that seems to go upside-down, just as a real roller coaster would. Unfortunately, that’s part of the ‘magic’.
Architects Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth explain, “Having a closer look, the public is disappointed in a disarming way. The visitor climbs on foot via differently steep steps the roller-coaster-sculpture. So the sculpture subtly and ironically plays with the dialectic of promise and disappointment, mobility and standstill.”
LED lights were integrated into the handrails so that the sculpture is not only accessible at night, but acts as a landmark, visible for miles. It was built on the site of a toxic zinc-slag pit left over from a local zinc operation that was cleaned up and made fit for public use.
