They appeared in the MuseumQuartier (MQ) in Vienna for the first time in the winter of 2002: The Enzis made their debut stacked up to create nearly baroque-style punch stands. It got warmer, the punch had all been drunk, but the Enzis remained.
The vast emptiness of the site was countered by means of over one hundred pieces of oversized, lightweight, and combinable rigid foam elements, which have populated the public space ever since. The ingenious, precise geometry of each Enzi facilitates innumerable combinations and three-dimensional arrangements, and thus expands their capacities: from simple furniture to urban building blocks in various scales.
Depending on the season, the elements generate different spaces: in pairs as sun loungers, lined up in a long row as a catwalk, or stacked up to create walk-through sculptures, the Enzis perform and at the same time provoke performative reactions from the visitors.
The current, third model of the Enzis—the Viena—has been manufactured industrially from polyurethane since 2013. It is more robust, cheaper, and easier to recycle than the original Enzi. Since 2011, Soft and Fabric Enzis of various sizes have been available, for which the artist Stefan Nessmann invented a seamless 3D pattern.
Here to stay, the Enzi family now populates not only the MuseumsQuartier, but also school courtyards, parks, public square, interior spaces, and swimming pools across the world.
