January
21 - March 26, 2006
Holiday
Home, Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos (UN Studio, Amsterdam)
with Imaginary Forces (New York) at the Institute of Contemporary
Art, Philadelphia
This winter,
the Institute of Contemporary Art is pleased to present a site-specific
commissioned installation by renowned architects Ben van Berkel
and Caroline Bos in ICA’s second-floor galleries.
The “Holiday
Home” is an experiential installation exploring and quantifying
areas in which the holiday home departs from modern design conventions.
The orthogonal surfaces of the archetypal house are extruded
and skewed creating the sculptural armature within which the
dichotomies of home and holiday home are played out. The new
architectural shape emulates escapism, the expectation of a
holiday as removed from the everyday experiential routine. The
interplay of what is real and what is virtual transpires on
a number of levels touching on ideas of collective memory and
phenomenological perceptions.
The unadorned
construction allows attention to be directed towards the spatial
configurations of the structure. Visitor movement through the
installation activates unexpected views and the multidirectional
shadows cast create unpredictable perspectives as they fall
onto faceted surfaces. The perception of time is intrinsically
interwoven into the project as light conditions subtly modulate
referencing different atmospheric qualities; the sense of season
and time of day become more abstract as you may find on holiday
where time has a different rhythm as it is unbound by the frameworks
of contemporary patterns of living and dwelling.
About
UN Studio
Based in Amsterdam, van Berkel and Bos have realized several
internationally acclaimed projects, including the Erasmus Bridge
(Rotterdam, 1990-96), the widely publicized Möbius House
(Het Gooi, 1993-98), and most recently, the opening of the Mercedes
Benz Museum (Stüttgart, 2006). Their work was also featured
in the International Architecture Exhibition of the 2004 Venice
Biennale. Van Berkel and Bos’s firm, UN Studio, is meant
to act as a “powerhouse” in which architects, graphic
designers, stylists, engineers, and other building and creative
professionals can collaborate dynamically. Van Berkel, a self-described
“hyper-modernist,” strives to design on the cutting
edge while maintaining coherence with the surrounding landscape,
and credits the computer for his designs’ noted fluidity.
Bos, an art historian, serves as in-house critic, all-purpose
debunker, and producer of conceptual and theoretical literature.
About
Imaginary Forces
Founded in 1996, ImaginaryForces (IF) is an entertainment and
design agency based in Los Angeles and New York. Their award-winning
work spans the diverse industries of feature film production
and marketing, corporate branding, architecture, commercial
advertising, and interactive media. Fusing architecture and
media, IF has created branded experiences for BMW, MoMA, Morgan
Stanley, Wynn Las Vegas, IBM, and the NFL's Baltimore Ravens.
Following the events of September 11, IF, together with colleagues
from five architectural firms, formed United Architects—a
collaboration that combined architecture, storytelling, and
filmmaking to address the social, emotional, national, and international
issues involved in the re-design of the World Trade Center site.
Additionally,
IF has produced main titles and marketing campaigns for such
feature films as Ray, Spider-Man, Seven, The Hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy and the upcoming release The Chronicles of Narnia.
Blade: Trinity, the third film produced by ImaginaryForces in
the Blade series, opened in theatres on December 8, 2004. IF
has also created acclaimed commercial campaigns for Nike, Herman
Miller, and Smirnoff. IF is comprised of over 70 creative professionals:
art directors, designers, writers, animators, editors, producers,
and film directors.
About
ICA Philadelphia
The UN Studio exhibition continues ICA’s Architecture
+ Design exhibition series, launched in 1999 to provide a laboratory
for artists and designers to realize their ideas in a visual
arts and academic environment and for ICA to explore connections
between the contemporary visual arts and the extended world
of design, including cutting-edge architecture. Van Berkel and
Bos are on the leading edge of the theory and practice of architecture
and design, and this exhibition fosters alternative and iconoclastic
design ideas. The UN Studio project furthers a primary goal
of ICA’s strategic plan—maintaining a critically
acclaimed exhibition program—by adding to the scope and
variety of exhibitions.
Architecture
and design have been well-represented in ICA’s 40-year
history. ICA-organized projects have included work by Hella
Jongerius and Jürgen Bey; Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture
(Asymptote Architecture) with Karim Rashid (stratascape, 2001-02);
and architect and theorist Greg Lynn (Intricacy, 2002-03). Architecture
and design shows at ICA organized by other institutions include
the work of Rudi Gernreich (2001), KieranTimberlake (2004),
and Ant Farm (2004). In fall 2006 (September 10 – December
15, 2006), Peter Eisenman (Eisenman Architects) and Laurie Olin
(The Olin Partnership) will create a landscape installation
presenting key physical and perceptual elements of the pair’s
unbuilt environments.
Support
ICA
is grateful for the generous support of the Philadelphia Exhibitions
Initiative (PEI), funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered
by the University of the Arts. We are also grateful for funding
from the Netherlands Architecture Fund, Elise Jaffe + Jeffrey
Brown, Goldberg Foundation, Inc., The Netherland America Foundation,
and the Consulate General of the Netherlands. Additional support
has been provided by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Dietrich
Foundation Inc., the Overseers Board for the Institute of Contemporary
Art, friends and members of ICA and the University of Pennsylvania.
(Information complete as of 12/15/05.)
All programs
subject to change. Please visit the ICA website, www.icaphila.org,
for more information on programs in conjunction with ICA’s
Architecture + Design exhibition series.
Location
ICA is located at 118 South 36th Street at the University of
Pennsylvania. ICA is open to the public, except during installation,
from 12:00pm to 8:00pm on Wednesday through Friday and from
11:00am to 5:00pm on Saturday and Sunday. Admission is $6 for
adults; $3 for students over 12, artists, and senior citizens;
and free to ICA members, children 12 and under, PENN card holders,
and on Sundays from 11:00am to 1:00pm. For more information,
call 215-898-7108/5911.
Institute
of Contemporary Art
Founded in 1963, the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University
of Pennsylvania is a leader in the presentation and documentation
of contemporary art. Through exhibitions, commissions, educational
programs, and publications, ICA invites the public to share
in the experience, interpretation and understanding of the work
of established and emerging artists.
Contact:
Jill
Katz
Manager of Marketing and Communications
Institute of Contemporary Art
University of Pennsylvania
118 South 36th Street
Philadelphia, PA
Tel.: 215-573-9975
publicity@icaphila.org
www.icaphila.org
