Courtesy of Lisson Gallery

On May 3, Lisson Gallery New York will open beneath the High Line between 23rd and 24th Street. Designed by studioMDA and Studio Christian Wassmann, the 8,500 square foot space is split between a gallery, offices, viewing rooms, and storage. Although the main gallery is directly under the High Line – the steel columns in the photos are actually supports for the elevated railway – it will receive ample sun from dramatically angled skylights along the space’s edge, which also aid to extend the walls vertically. The gallery’s polished concrete floors, white walls, and natural light are typical of today’s contemporary art spaces, but also maintain the aesthetic of Lisson’s other galleries. The public will access the space via 24th Street, while the 23rd Street entrance will be reserved for staff purposes and private functions.

“The architecture is consistent with the aesthetic of the London galleries, with polished concrete floors and an abundance of natural light, provided by two large skylights on either side of the main exhibition space,” says Lisson Gallery. “The space allows for 16-foot ceilings and two massive, undisturbed display walls. The façades will be cast in exposed white concrete, highlighting the entrance at 504 West 24th Street.”

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© Nico Saieh

• Architects: Guillermo Hevia García + Nicolás Urzúa Soler
• Location: Araucano Park, Las Condes, Las Condes, Región Metropolitana, Chile
• Area: 600.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Nico Saieh

• Collaborators: Felipe Droppelmann, Cristian Fuhrhop, Cristóbal Montalbetti, Diego Rivera
• Client: MoMA NY + Constructo
• Structural Engineering: Hunter Douglas Chile
• Construction: Hunter Douglas Chile
• Budget: 35.000 US$
• Time Of Construction: 45 days
• Project Year: 2015

The project is a pavilion for leisure, located in Parque Araucano, a public park in the city of Santiago. The pavilion aims to produce an interaction with park users through its mirrored concave and convex curves which generate a universe of multiplications and deformations of people and the surrounding environment.

The project is constructed by three mirrored aluminum bi-dimensional planes of 3.2 m. high and 25 mm. of thickness containing a landscape of gentle hills, spongy vegetation, wild flowers and moving water that has been translate from an imaginary place. The pavilion is also the support for the development of a series of cultural activities including concerts, live music or stagings, which are all open for public and free.

We have meant to build an uncertain experience, a situation of estrangement, one which we do not intend on controlling, as the possibilities of reflection and deformation provoked by the concave and convex mirrored steel bi-dimensional planes are infinite. We have multiplied the amount of reflecting and deformation situations in order to produce an interaction belonging to a world of illusions, more surreal than real. We want the visitor to be expectant of what is going to surprise them in the next place.

The materialization of this experience is achieved through two operations: 

The first is the definition of a support or topography, a landscape with smooth mounds, covered in grass and spongy vegetation, colored by an infinite number of wild flowers, and that is also crossed by a small creek. 

The second operation is the insertion of three mirrored aluminum bi-dimensional planes, which build a series of inside and outside spaces, eliminating the limits, disappearing, letting its reflected surroundings become the real project. 

These tapes are embedded in the ground and configured and structured using an abundance of concavities and convexities which allow self-supporting and standing on the same level of 3.2 m high and 25 mm. thickness. 

We wanted to change the center of the object’s proposal to the experience of the subject, their interaction and that of others, and how their surroundings or context will be reflected and deformed with them and in front of them. In the end, we do not intend on building a closed proposal, but rather articulating a universe of sensations and experiences open to many interpretations.

We could point out that a way to measure a good city is the amount of activities and free access quality spaces that offers to its inhabitants. In that sense, the activities and projects intended for leisure are a good scale for measuring these aspects. The pavilion is inserted into this logic -in the middle of a public space- offering an unconventional experience to its visitors, which interacts with the project in various ways.

The pavilion is a model to be replicated and inserted in a more heterogeneous circuit and supports for public spaces destined for leisure throughout the entire territory, whether urban or rural areas.  

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