The international art world has sung paeans of praise about Danish-Icelandic artist Ólafur Elíasson for a few years now, but I was deaf to it.

However, while spending my vacation in Berlin, Europe's hippest city at present, I got the opportunity to visit Elíasson's ongoing exhibition “Innen Stadt Außen”, which, of course, I seized.

The queue at the museum, Martin-Gropius-Bau, was enormous, some people had to wait several hours to get in. And I'm talking five to six hours.

For those poor fools who don't know about Ólafur Elíasson (and I was one of them until this week), he is famous for his impressive and beautiful installations and likes to incorporate public space into his projects.

"Ice Pavilion" by Ólafur Elíasson. Photo by Páll Stefánsson.

Once I made it into the exhibition I was instantly fascinated by a world of light, colors, mirrors and reflections used to create beautiful art.

I don't want to describe each and every piece on display, otherwise I would have to go on for hours, but I will pick out my favorites.

The courtyard in the heart of the building was turned into a shiny, kaleidoscopic tunnel of mirrors; it felt like you were standing inside an endless crystal.

Another installation I really liked was the “Blind Room”, a room filled with fog. The fog, together with different light effects made your skin look old and spotted, as if you had a skin disease. Not very flattering.

The piece I probably liked the most was the “Yellow to Purple Activity Sphere”, a big sphere made of steel, aluminum and color-effect filter glass.

Through a light bulb in the inside of it the light beams were refracted and scattered and therefore created a colorful, sparkling light. It was just so pretty.

"Green River" by Ólafur Elíasson. Photo by Páll Stefánsson.

My very first visit to the world of Ólafur Elíasson turned out as a beautiful and impressive experience.

Afterwards I felt like such a philistine for not having paid any attention to this great artist before. Well, better late than never. Now I am among the artist's flock of worshippers.

Admiring Elíasson's exhibition in Germany made me think about a work of his in Iceland.

I'm talking about Reykjavík's maybe most ambitious and controversial construction project: the new concert and conference hall called Harpa (The Harp). In collaboration with a team of architects Elíasson designed the facade.

Passing by the busy construction site of Harpa almost daily I was worried and feared it would look horrific, to be honest. I thought it was going to be another modern overly sterile and cold building of which there are already so many.

Harpa under construction. Copyright: Icelandic Photo Agency.

It doesn't look too appealing at the moment, rather like a skeleton. But let's not forget that it is still in its unfinished state and will look totally different when finished.

The facade consists of 12-sided modules in steel and partly colored glass, once finished the light will shine through it and throw color and shades on the floor inside the hall.

From the outside you will see color washes appearing and disappearing depending on your proximity, angle and brightness of the daylight.

Now that I have seen how my newly found artistic idol Elíasson works I am at ease regarding the look of the new concert and congress hall.

I am filled with anticipation, actually, it's going to be so beautiful.

I cannot wait for spring 2011, the estimated completion date. But I have to, so I will just kill time by studying the exhibition catalogue of Elíasson's Berlin show.

Just in case you're within reach of Berlin until the August 9, go and visit this fantastic show—it's totally worth it.

Katharina Hauptmann – katha.hauptmann@gmail.com