REPOST: Awesome, Immersive Exhibition Shows How Architecture Can Shape Your Senses

Her task to make architecture more than a just a building we pass by was successful.  Read the story of Kate Goodwin and the seven architects she gathered from across the globe to create a gallery that tapped into its spectators' senses in this article from Wired.com.

Image Source: www.wired.com

Buildings have the unfortunate fate of being taken advantage of. Architecture is about form, sure, but in our day-to-day lives, we mostly appreciate it for its functionality. “We use spaces to work, to live, to shop, and we don’t often think about actually being in a building,” says Kate Goodwin. 

Goodwin is the curator of Sensing Spaces, a newly opened exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in London that looks at architecture through the array of human senses. Goodwin tapped seven architects from around the world to create multi-sensory spaces within the gallery that would challenge visitors to really experience architecture instead of passively taking it in.

The Royal Academy gave the architects free reign over 23,000 square feet with no directive other than to create immersive architectural experiences. Each approached the task differently, but each installation provokes certain senses. Chinese architect Li Xiaodong, for example, built a maze made from more than 21,000 hazel sticks. Visitors are guided through the structure by illuminated floors that are meant to evoke a snowy path on a winter night. 

Japanese designer Kengo Kuma created a delicate matrix made from more than 3,000 curved bamboo sticks that spring up from the ground forming an abstracted pyramid. Each piece was soaked in the scent of Japanese cedar wood to enhance the experience. It’s a look at how a minimal amount of material can still have a maximum effect, if employed correctly.

Another piece, by Chilean duo Pezo von Ellrichshausen is a monumental wooden structure that, from the outside, appears to be a quite plain box on top of four cylinders. But behind the wood are four spiral staircases that lead visitors six meters up to the canopy of the museum, where they can closely observe (probably for the first time ever) the intricate gold detailing of the gallery’s ceiling. “It’s about taking you to another world,” says Goodwin. “You really get to experience a gallery that we never get to see normally.”

One of the more interactive pieces, by Diébédo Francis Kéré from Berlin, is a tunnel-like structure built out of honeycomb plastic, the material that is often structurally used in construction but not often seen. On its own, the panels of plastic create a monolithic structure, but the coolest part is when you realize there’s a bin of neon straws waiting for you on the other side. The point is for visitors to stick straws into the plastic, creating a totally new facade. “We’ve seen people talking to each other through the straw,” says Goodwin.

Which is a perfect example of why Sensing Space is such a fantastic exhibition (and so hard to explain in words). Architecture, at its core, is meant to be experienced, and by virtue of human nature, each person will choose how to do that differently. But it also has a way of bringing people together, if only to gaze in wonderment at two hulking concrete arches Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura has hinged to the doors of the gallery. “People were even stroking the concrete,” says Goodwin. “But it is a really beautiful concrete.”

Sensing Spaces will be at the Royal Academy until April 6, 2014.

I'm William B. Lauder, an architect from New York who specializes in spatial maximization and minimalist architecture.  Follow this Twitter page for more links to articles about architecture.