Mur
Island (2003)by
Vito Acconci
www. aechinfo.com.tw
Mur Island, which is an artificial island placed on
the middle of Mur River in Graz, is designed by Vito Acconci in 2003. Vito
Acconci is a famous contemporary artist in America. He is a designer,
performance artist, installation artist, and architect. The Mur Island was a
project that supposed to be an attractive point for Graz in the ‘Cultural Capital of Europe 2003’. Graz is originally
a vintage city in Austria. The Mur River divides Graz into two parts which
disturbed the communication and cultural interaction of the people living in respective
side. A local artist called Robert
Punkenhofer brought up an idea of connecting the nature and city by artificial
connection. After that Vito Acconci developed this idea and designed the Mur
Island in order to encourage the communication between two sides of people.
Mur Island has the interesting shape of twist and whirlpool. It is also
like a huge spaceship anchored on the water. Mur Island is a multi-function
water theatre that allows all kind of people to visit. The hub of the whole
architecture can be mainly separated into two sections as an outdoor theatre
and an indoor café. The outdoor theatre likes a bowl without cover or a
half-opened shell. The bleachers are stepping down to the bottom stage of the
theatre. However, the theatre is not only for performance or function activity.
When there is not use as theater, it will be a communal space for public as an
open-air café. The indoor part of the architecture is just like a reverse bowl
or the back of a turtle. It is a blue and white indoor café bar that allows
people to enjoy the beautiful natural view of the Mur River in a very close
distance. The transparent and curved roof reflects the light into the café. It
makes the inter area seems to be immersed underwater. The central part
connecting the indoor and outdoor areas is an ‘adventure playground’ for
children. It is a ramp that consists of climbing and scrambling facilities for
children. Under the ramp, there are some rooms for kitchen, toilet and bar
counter. Parents can just leave their children in the exciting playground and set
in the café so that they can enjoy the relaxing moment with the amazing view.
When I did the research of Vito Acconci, I was
shocked that he was actually not a professional architect at the beginning but
he still can create such kind of impressive architecture. I think it is because
he have made use of his knowledge of art and his imagination and applied his unique
aesthetic onto the design of architecture. This proves the inseparable
relationship between art and architecture. Although designing a building is
definitely not an easy joy as we need to consider many other factors such as environment,
function, client’s requirement, etc. Vito Acconci could not do whatever he wanted
while designing the Mur Island. He has gone through many difficulties of the
work indeed. For example, he had to consider about the inconstant height of the
water as well as the huge cost of building the theatre. Nevertheless, his sense
of art helps him a lots in creating this innovative architecture.
Moreover, the avant-garde design makes the building
to be outstanding in the antique city. The curving shape and the dome of the
building form the fluidity of the architecture which matches to the flowing
water of the Mur River. It is actually combining the nature and modern.
In short, the Mur Island is not just the passing
way of the river, but it is also a meeting place for people. Residents in two
sides are encouraged to contact with each other through this special communal
area. It becomes the landmark of the city.
Storefront for Art and
Architecture (1993)
The
Storefront for Art and Architecture is a contemporary art and architecture
constructed by architect Stephen Holl and conceptual artist Vito Acconci in New
York City in 1993. This time, they were not actually constructing a building,
but they were trying to rebuild one of the storefronts which is nearly one hundred
feet long in New York City street and transform it to be a gallery for
exhibition. Traditional storefronts are normally for shop and its displays. However,
Stephen and Vito changed the rule. They tried to break the boundary between the
gallery and the street and also the passerby who are the major source of
audience of artworks. It is, more
importantly, provides the dialogue of the inside and outside spaces.
When you
just look at it in the normal way, it seems nothing special that looks like a
flat and boring white board. Actually it has been cut into many irregular
shape panels which can be rotated upward and downward or left and right. The
bigger panels can be the door and the smaller panels can be the windows.
Everyone who passes through the storefront can open or close the panels so we
can see different appearances of the storefront every day. The lighting effect
is also a vital part of this storefront design. In the morning and afternoon,
natural sun light slips into the interior from the gaps and intervals of the
board. At night, artificial light will effuse from the inter area to the
outside street. The gallery is only open to the street in one facade and the
space of the gallery is pretty narrow. If there is a giant artwork that placed
inside the gallery, visitors will be difficult to see the entire object in the
narrow indoor place. They have to walk outside to see the whole picture with
the frames of opened panels instead of seeing only part of the object in the
gallery. Therefore, if artists want to exhibit their own works in the
storefront gallery, they should also consider of the panels, in order to create
a balance picture for both the artwork and the storefront board. The kinetic
and changeable elements make this simple architecture to be complicated.
http://www.archifield.net/vb/showthread.php?5349-Reef-an-installation-at-Storefront-for-Art-and-Architecture
Reef, an installation at Storefront for Art and Architecture, by
Rob Ley and Joshua Stein.
This is
an amazing design that let normal people and art to be closer. Every
passerby who is walking through the street would have a chance to see the
artwork inside or even outside the gallery, even though they are only has a
glimpse. It is really interesting that the architecture must become a part of
the artists’ exhibiting artworks. It seems to be a 2-dimentional board but
actually it is a 3-dimentional installation. It is an architecture that
functions as a gallery but at the same time it is a piece of artwork too. These
show the interaction of art and architecture. I think the designers are playing
tricks with audience, with us. Perhaps they want us to think more about the
relationship between art and architecture, or maybe they want us to use
different views and angles to see an artwork so that we can obtain more
inspiration.
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