A Tribute in Light. Carsten Höller’s Monument to Hans Künzi at Zürich HB

Carsten Höller, Denkmal für Hans Künzi, 2017, Hauptbahnhof Zürich (Exit Eurpaaallee). Photo by Christian Beutler. Courtesy of Zürich Tourismus

At first glance, it might be easy to overlook. Suspended quietly above the entrance to Europaplatz at Zürich’s main train station, a choreography of light plays out in the background of daily life. But look again — these glowing circles are not just an elegant design. They form the Denkmal für Hans Künzi, a public artwork by renowned installation artist Carsten Höller, created in 2017 as a tribute to a figure who transformed the city from behind the scenes.

Hans Künzi (1924–2004), a mathematician and longtime Zürich politician, is often called the “father of the S-Bahn.” As a member of the Zürich cantonal government and a professor at both the University of Zürich and ETH, Künzi was instrumental in conceptualizing and realizing the Zürich S-Bahn network and the Zürcher Verkehrsverbund (ZVV). Today, over 450,000 passengers travel via the S-Bahn each day — a testament to a vision that reshaped how the city breathes, moves, and connects.

But how does one honor a life’s work built on invisible systems and seamless transitions?

Carsten Höller answers this with subtle brilliance. Known for his interactive and often disorienting installations, Höller brings a scientist’s precision and a childlike sense of play to everything he makes. For Künzi’s memorial, he designed a series of 400 neon circles, each 60 centimeters in diameter, arranged in an L-shaped grid across the ceiling of the Europaplatz underpass. Programmed to blink and pulse in coordinated patterns, the lights suggest the stop-and-go rhythm of transit, the smooth acceleration and occasional halt of a train, the flowing and tangling of human movement.

Sometimes the rings appear to travel in sequence like carriages on a track; other times, they overlap and seem to react to each other, shifting pace or direction. There is no single story being told, yet the language is unmistakably that of movement, coordination, and control. It is an abstract portrait of a transit system and the mind that helped orchestrate it.

What makes the installation so compelling is that it sits quietly in one of the city’s busiest microcosms. Zürich Hauptbahnhof is a threshold: the place where departures, arrivals, errands, commutes, and reunions all blur together. From the platform levels and subterranean corridors to the polished commercial center, it’s a space of constant flow. And yet, through Höller’s artwork, this passage becomes a place to pause. By simply looking up, the ordinary escalator ride becomes part of something more poetic.

It is also, notably, a democratic gesture. The work access is free and open to all. Commuters, travelers, tourists, and locals encounter it not in a gallery but in transit — art stitched seamlessly into the fabric of daily routine. The monument is not a static statue, but a living system of light — an elegant metaphor for the ongoing movement Künzi helped enable. It is an experience, a moment of contemplation in a space usually defined by urgency.

It asks for little more than your attention, and in return, it gently reveals how the systems that shape a city can themselves become art. So next time you're passing through Zürich HB, take a moment to slow down. Step onto the escalator at Europaplatz, look up. Let the light move you.

Text by Jonas Spielman