8.21.2009

Bookshelf: Installations by Architects

I've been poring through Installations by Architects: Experiments in Building and Design, to be published by Princeton Architectural Press this October. It's a remarkable compendium of projects by architects including Diller + Scofidio, Allan Wexler, Anderson Anderson (with Cameron Schoepp) and others. My favorites tend to be sculptural interventions in public space.
Périphérique Architectes' Pink Ghost created an outdoor salon, injecting an element of play in urban Paris.

Richard Kroeker describes his Eye Level project (above), a collaboration with university students in Canada:
General Cornwallis is officially regarded as the founder of Halifax. He was a British General, who during his time in Nova Scotia issued a decree offering a bounty for the scalps of Mi’maq including non-combatants, women and children. This was part of a grim history of genocidal policies targeting indigenous people. The Eye Level project created the opportunity for anyone to climb the stairs to visit Cornwallis, and read his proclamation back to him. The implication is that we need to constantly revisit history, to re consider how and why we create heroes and monuments to our pasts.
Walking the Park, a grass-lined walking wheel, featured here in 2006:

No comments: