On a national thematic Concrete Day, the Concrete Association of Estonia announced today winners of ‘The Concrete Construction of Year 2011’ Award at an seminar event held in the Tallinn University of Technology.

Concrete Construction 2011 in Estonia is ‘Cromatico’ sound sculpture, located on the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds.
Grand Prix Award of the competition was granted to sculptor Lukas Kühne from Germany.
Constructor Award – Andrei Kervališvili, Nordecon Betoon OÜ, Builder Award – Nordecon Betoon OÜ, Concrete Supplier Award – HC Betoon AS.

‘Cromatico’ is a visualisation of chromatic musical scale. It consists of 12 concrete chambers (which illustrate one octave of the black and white piano keys). Each chamber of the concrete band shell reverberates in a different pitch.

According to the sculptor, the ‘Cromatico’ project was realised for The European Capital of Culture Tallinn 2011 in cooperation with an international culture platform Tuned City (tunedcity.net), Architect, Rosario Nuin und Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany Tallinn.

Comments of the jury: Very thin walls of the sculpture, poured from monolithic concrete directly on location, required extremely skilful workers. The sculpture is a complicated engineering solution, in which the artist’s vision of sounds and their travel through the chambers meet well with technical realisation.
‘Cromatico’ gives concrete a new role as an acoustic element. The quality of technical concrete work is very good. The conception’s magic lies in the fact that the sculpture consists only of concrete and of no other additional gadgets or materials. The installation has also been placed successfully into the surrounding landscape.

Aadu Kana, chairmain of the jury: Estonia has received a sound sculpture that is unique in the world. It was brought to life from the inspirational ideas of Lukas Kühne and Mikko Fritze by  enthusiastic cooperation of a concrete specialist Mait Rõõmusaar (Nordecon Betoon OÜ).
It is also remarkable due majority of the project was done as pro bono by all parties, as a sincere and voluntary commitment. This is best possible advertising for concrete as such.