Switch+ / Golden Pavilion For Sculpture Projects Muenster 07
The switch+ information centre, a temporary structure specially designed for the internationally renowned outdoor exhibition sculpture projects muenster 07, offers a central location for services related to the exhibition, including an information point, catalogue sales, rentals of the multimedia tour system, and a specialty bookshop.
A twelve meter high parallelepiped, which is clad on all sides with golden copper alloy panels, was built adjacent to the Museum of Art and Cultural History and the exhibition project office on an open square that has been unused up to now. The project makes interesting references to its direct surroundings and its own function. The golden surface takes on the colour of the writing designed by artist Martin Schmidl for Skulptur Projekte Muenster 07, that is decorating the fassade of a building close to the pavilon and marking the location of the exhibition project office.
With colour, materials and its evenly distributed round perforations of varying diameter, the building also reacts to the light installation Silver Frequency created by the artist Otto Piene in the 1970s for the museum fassade across the way.
The function of the switch+ pavilion is revealed by examining its name: The eastern side of the lower half of the fassade, facing the street corner, rests on slide rollers and can be moved so that entrances on both sides of the information centre close or open. In this way, various switch settings emerge as recommendations for pedestrians passing by, that, when open, invite them to the southern entrance and the information stand.
On the other side, visitors are guided to the north entrance over a jagged landscape part of the overall design of the public square consisting of varying heights and irregularly arranged steps and levels, all made out of plywood.
The bookshop on the mid-level is accessible from the entrance on the west side, located higher up and leading to the rooftop terrace cafe on the top floor via a wooden staircase. Seen from the inside, the frame of the pavilion appears as a simple steel grid construction, onto which the Gold cassettes are directly fastened without a substructure. The floors are made of plywood boards on battens.
With the exception of the bookshop, which is protected from wind and weather on all sides by tarpaulins of the kind otherwise used for trucks, all areas are separated from the outside world alone by the perforated metal skin. This creates fascinating views. Particularly in the evening, when the pavilon seems to glow due to the interior lighting and a soft shimmer is cast through the perforations, a wonderful play of light and space is created in combination with the activated light installation on the museum fassade, even more fascinating regarding the fact that this Piene work is so urgently in need of renovation.
The reactions to this pavilion and its golden cladding, which draws all eyes upwards and is so very unusual for Muensters usual cityscape, are numerous: Passers-by photograph the object as often as the sculptures on display, touch the pleasantly smooth surface in disbelief, caress the perforations as if they were looking for an explanation for the impressive fassade image. Children from the neighbouring summer academy romp over the wooden stair landscape between the pavilion and museum, blow bubbles in the air and, unbeknownst to them, add an additional design element to the fassade image across the way...