Revolutionary Pavilion
From Venice to Tokyo, Serpentine to Expo, we find an ever-lengthening procession of pavilions. The designers of these pavilions are always searching for the new, the daring, the shrewd, the dazzling. In their quest for novelty, these designers risk promoting form over content, mistaking pavilions for follies. But the procession of forms is not evolutionary but revolutionary, a carousel of styles and ideas linked to the recursive cycles of history.
Our proposal is for a pavilion and not a folly. We are at a historical juncture where flexibility, economy and clarity are in greater demand than ever. Rather than a dazzling form, we seek a space capable of accommodating a constantly alternating program of activities. Accordingly, we envision an interactive framework which is animated and transformed by gatherings and events, and which in turn transforms and animates the surrounding garden. Changing character at a moment’s notice, the interior shifts from contextual to neutral; from functional to eclectic. No two experiences are alike.
Two discs sit superimposed in the Archivo garden: a roof suspended above a deck. Between roof and deck are four walls. Together, the walls form a contained room, but they can also be rotated and moved along a track in endless configurations. On one side of each wall is the pristine white surface of the gallery. The other side of each wall features a unique trait: there is a pink wall, a gold wall, a green wall and a bar wall. Contained within the roof are all the devices required for hosting events: power, lights, speakers, skylights and a projector.
Does the gold wall reflect the lush vegetation of the garden into a darkened room? Does she, arriving late to the party, open a door to reveal a shocking burst of pink? Are the walls stacked away on a wet summer’s day, enveloping the cafe in a curtain of rain? In this proposal, we have attempted to describe some of the activities and atmospheres framed by the Revolutionary Pavilion. What happens next is up to the curators, the visitors, the playful children and the rules of chance.
