Olaf Nicolai installs A synthetic rink inside a baroque hall
Olaf Nicolai introduces Eisfeld II: Enjoy / Survive to Palazzo Diedo in Venice, transforming the frescoed banqueting hall into a 100-square-meter skating rink. On view until February 22nd, 2026, the installation is presented by Berggruen Arts & Culture and coincides with the year of the Winter Olympics. Nicolai’s project brings an unlikely form of movement into an enclosed, historic interior.
Eisfeld II uses sustainable technology that simulates ice, allowing the rink to exist within the fragile setting of Palazzo Diedo’s first-floor hall. Visitors are invited onto the surface, where skating becomes both a physical activity and a perceptual shift. A soundtrack accompanies the installation, heightening a sense of estrangement as sound, motion, and architectural ornament collide. The contrast between the Baroque frescoes and the engineered skating field foregrounds the tension between historical permanence and temporary, bodily experience.
all images by Joan Porcel Studio, unless stated otherwise
Eisfeld II: Enjoy / Survive: a conceptual axis within palazzo diedo
Originally presented in 2001 at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich, Eisfeld returns here in a reinterpreted form. The Venice iteration adapts the work to a new architectural and cultural context, integrating contemporary technologies while retaining its core inquiry. Nicolai uses this return as a way to reopen questions about how institutions frame participation, leisure, and spectacle, especially when the artwork demands active involvement rather than passive viewing.
At either end of the rink, Nicolai places two lightboxes titled ENJOY/SURVIVE (I & II). Their stark pairing introduces a conceptual axis that runs through the installation. Skating, often associated with play and pleasure, is reframed as a precarious act that requires control and endurance. The lightboxes turn the rink into a space of reflection, where enjoyment is inseparable from the conditions that make it possible.
the lightboxes turn the rink into a space of reflection
the frescoed banqueting hall becomes a 100-square-meter skating rink
Nicolai’s project brings an unlikely form of movement into an enclosed, historic interior
coinciding with the year of the Winter Olympics | image by Stefano Mazzola/Getty Images.Courtesy of Palazzo Diedo, Berggruen Arts & Culture, and the artist.
a soundtrack accompanies the installation | image by Stefano Mazzola/Getty Images.Courtesy of Palazzo Diedo, Berggruen Arts & Culture, and the artist.
foregrounding the tension between historical permanence and temporary, bodily experience | image by Stefano Mazzola/Getty Images.Courtesy of Palazzo Diedo, Berggruen Arts & Culture, and the artist.
Eisfeld returns in a reinterpreted form | image by Stefano Mazzola/Getty Images.Courtesy of Palazzo Diedo, Berggruen Arts & Culture, and the artist.
a way to reopen questions about how institutions frame participation, leisure, and spectacle | image by Stefano Mazzola/Getty Images.Courtesy of Palazzo Diedo, Berggruen Arts & Culture, and the artist.
Eisfeld II uses sustainable technology that simulates ice
skating becomes both a physical activity and a perceptual shift
project info:
name: Eisfeld II: Enjoy / Survive
artist: Olaf Nicolai
venue: Palazzo Diedo
location: Venice, Italy
dates: December 13th, 2025 – February 22nd, 2026
presented by: Berggruen Arts & Culture | @berggruendiedo
The post sustainable ice skating rink occupies palazzo diedo’s frescoed banquet hall in venice appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.