CMY PAVILION
Art installation for the Tschumi pavillion in Groningen
The CMY pavilion transforms the glass structure of Tschumi into a three dimensional graphic work that shifts its composition and color scheme with the viewpoint of the spectator.
The Tschumi pavilion was originally built as a video pavilion for the city-wide exhibition-event “What a Wonderful World” in 1990, being together with the one of Koolhaas the only surviving ones nowadays. (The others designed by Eisenman, Hadid, and Himmelblau have disappeared).
In the middle of a busy roundabout in Groningen, Tschumi created one of the most transparent buildings ever built: its facades, roof as well as structure are made of clear glass. Tschumi chose glass for its reflective quality to create “instable facades” that would reflect the video images endlessly. These videos transformed the “invisible pavilion” into an “illusionistic spectacle” in which the virtual image from the reflections mix with the real image from the monitors and the city.
Our intervention reinterprets the idea of “instable facades”. Instead of using the glass envelope to mix videos, the CMY pavilion uses the glass to mix colors. By applying translucent films in the colors cyan, magenta and yellow onto the glass, the pavilion turns into a three dimensional graphic piece that changes continuously with the movement of the spectator.
The colored pattern of diagonal bands that wrap around the building is derived from the rigid paneling system of the structure. Because of the parallel transparent facades, the color bands start mixing according to the subtractive color model. The overlap of the “real” primary colors on the glass create secondary “virtual colors”: C + M = Blue, Y + C = Green, M + C = red. The transparent pavilion becomes a dynamic color space with a strong urban presence.
