Hannes and Petruschka Vogel – Trari trara DIE POST ist da! (1997)

Leaving the Chur railway station in a westerly direction, one encounters the post office building by Richard Brosi and Robert Obrist, built from 1990 to 1995. Large letters in post-office yellow float between the facade and the canopy roof, spelling the phrase Trari trara DIE POST ist da! (Trari trara THE POST is here!) by Hannes and Petruschka Vogel. The work consists of metal letters with neon lights mounted on a grid, which makes it easy to read the words during the day and at night.

The artist Hannes Vogel (1938, Chur) and the designer and architect Petruschka Vogel (1943, Basel–2019, Zurich) began collaborating on projects for the public space in 1989. Graphic elements, neon lights, and letters are recurring stylistic devices in their work, guided by their shared vision to enhance the architectural space for its users. This is exemplified by the work Trari trara DIE POST ist da!, which provides visitors with both spatial and temporal orientation. The large letters point the way to the PostBus waiting area, which at the time of installation had just been built beneath the impressive glass hall above the railway tracks. The colour of the letters is a reminder of the yellow PostBus passenger vehicles that once filled the railway plaza. The artwork also established the new brand name DIE POST, which was adopted after PTT (Swiss Postal Telegraph and Telephone agency) was split into the independent companies Swiss Post and Swisscom in 1998. Additionally, the phrase was inspired by an advertising slogan for the city of Churfrom the 1940s that was met with ambivalence by the local population at the time: “Chur is pretty, stay a while”.

The neon phrase in slender italics by Hannes and Petruschka Vogel creates a visual anchor point for the station square while remaining inconspicuous, even somewhat lost. This impression may be related to the fact that the postal buildings, the glass hall, and the artwork were realized as the first phase of an ambitious redevelopment plan for the station area that was ultimately abandoned. This is an example of how art in architecture can find itself in unforeseen situations and must assert itself independently in the urban space. (JI)