GARDEN ROOM
“Garden Room” is a temporary outdoor installation that consists of eight exaggerated plywood chairs arranged around an equally dramatic stage. Situated among seven acres of trees and remnant prairie in Lake Forest, the installation was built with communal gathering and performance in mind, providing resident artists of a local nonprofit, the Ragdale Foundation, with an immersive, unconventional scenography, in the form of an abstract amphitheater-like pavilion.
The architects drew inspiration from several sources, including artist Carrie Mae Weems’ “The Kitchen Table” photo series (1990), which depicts the kitchen table as both an intimate, vulnerable space and as a stage for the performance of one’s life. The design is evocative of the work of Donald Judd, particularly his Chair 84 and Table 22 designs. The pieces also reference the forms of Enzo Mari’s Carrara playground in Tuscany and riff on the social and spatial aesthetics of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s film The Holy Mountain. They considered convivial scenes of salon-style exchange and how seating is essential in allowing people to gather. This served as a design objective for the pair, setting out to make the chairs and table a one-of-a-kind auditorium and stage. By dramatically heightening each plane that makes up the seat-backs, the eight chairs form a circular room, partially secluded from the surrounding landscape.
“Garden Room” was constructed during an 18-day residency, by the architects as the 11th winners of the annual Ragdale Ring competition. Hosted by the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Illinois, the Ragdale Ring is an annual competition the nonprofit holds, seeking performance venues and gathering spaces to serve as a backdrop for summer programming.
The theme, “Theater of the Intimate,” resonated with the architects, prompting them to send a submission after following the competition for several years. The original Ragdale Ring, built in 1909, served as a performance space for the theatrical works of Howard Van Doren Shaw’s wife, Frances Wells. Considering the annual Ragdale Ring competition returned to the original site Shaw built upon over a century ago, “Garden Room” serves as a tribute to the property’s history while inverting the dynamics of performers and participants in a theatrical setting.
How DRAWINGS designed the chairs offered theatricality and practicality alike. Each chair was fabricated in two parts that connect at an intersecting joint with sturdy mechanical fasteners.
This design created a striking frame for the visitor sitting directly in front of or behind the seat-back, harkening back to the idea of the table’s theatrical potential. The backward-facing portion of the seat extending through the seat-back is long enough to seat three to four people.
The entire pavilion is white-washed to abstract the plywood grain and elevate the commonplace construction materiality.
