In Israel, a Kinetic Monument by Calatrava Honors a Philanthropist

A monument by Santiago Calatrava has eight levels of moving stainless-steel ribs. (Technion-Israel Institute of Technology image)

This month the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, Israel, dedicated an unusual new campus monument by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who was recently selected to design a new building for the University of South Florida.

The monument, which is more than 90 feet tall, has an exterior made up of 224 moving stainless-steel ribs on eight levels. According to a news release from the institute, the monument was designed to have “a wave-like motion generated by the electric motor that sits atop the mast; each moving rib induces the sequential motion of the next, from the top level to the bottom.”

“The effect of this sinusoidal movement is an illusion of the whole monument rotating on its axis,” says the project manager, Michael Polonsky. “Actually, the movement is more akin to our ribcage moving in and out during the process of breathing.”

The monument, which is illuminated at night, honors Russell Berrie, a New Jersey toymaker, entrepreneur, and philanthropist who died in 2002. The Russell Berrie Foundation, established in 1985, underwrote the creation of a nanotechnology institute named for Berrie at the Technion.