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Just opened,
in London:
Jean Nouvel's
Red Sun Pavilion
at the
Serpentine,
London’s beloved art gallery in the Kensington Gardens, named for
the nearby lake. Every year, for the last 10 years, the
Serpentine has had a new summer pavilion, designed by an architect
of some renown. Previous offerings have come from Sanaa, Koolhaas,
Gehry, Hadid. This year, the Pavilion has been designed by Jean Nouvel,
architect of one our
favorite buildings in Paris, the
Institut du
Monde Arabe
and also of the glittering 100 11th Avenue downtown (we
love this photograph below--the building sparkling like some
delightful creature against the backdrop of brown and gray, as if
it were clothed in the glittering water itself...)
The very
nature of the Pavilion project—temporary, ephemeral—let Nouvel do
something rather novel...play with color in a manner dramatic,
painterly, and bold. London, of course, brings to mind the
red of double-decker buses and phone booths and mailboxes, but
Nouvel’s inspiration is far more poetic. Nouvel's notes for the Red Sun
Pavilion, reveal that his use of the color red is closer to
Rothko's
own in his Seagram Murals which are the subject of the play
Red, and to this idea of the sun burning red
against closed eyelids, Nouvel adds the explosive vibrancy and
harmony created in the use of complementary colors, of red juxtaposed with
green. Nouvel’s notes:
FLEETING
SUMMER… use summer… the sun… STARE AT THE SUN… filter the sun… a
red filter… red as a conductor… RED SUN… a red glow… a red screen…
a windbreaker… in the red… A HAZE OF RED… like closing your eyes
against the sun… BLURRED… without end… see green through red…
filter… sift… RED EXPLODING AGAINST GREEN…!
Of steel,
polycarbonate, glass, and fabric, the temporary structure includes a
39-foot freestanding wall that seemingly defies gravity, and everything is red, gloriously red,
unabashedly red--tables, chairs, walls, curtains--all against
cooling, contrary, complementary green of grass and trees. There is a
certain playfulness about the space with its ping-pong tables,
chessboards, frisbees, and kites....
Of course,
this being London, the pavilion opened to marvelous wordplay in
the press: Rouge Awakening, London’s New Red Light
District, The Lure of the Lurid...!
Visit:
Serpentine
Gallery
Online:
Ateliers Jean
Nouvel
Read:
Institut du
Monde Arabe
Read:
Rothko's use
of red
Tags:
architecture
art
design
red
color
jean_nouvel
london
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