Photo credits © Roland Halbe
This year at the Biennale of Architecture in Venice, 71 architects from all over the world will respond to the Manifesto written by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, in order to reveal, to lay bare, the Freespace ingredient embedded in their work.
The installation, centered around Studio Odile Decq’s « Phantom » project (Restaurant of the Opéra Garnier, Paris, France) will have a spatial, physical presence of a scale and quality, which will impact on the visitor, communicating the architecture’s complex spatial nature in relation to Freespace.
FREESPACE is defined as binding past, present and future together, building on inherited cultural layers, weaving the archaic with the contemporary, as well as encouraging new ways of thinking and finding ingenious solutions to reveal the space in a new way.
The architecture of the Phantom project fits remarkably with this year’s theme, in which creating a new space in the Opéra Garnier, a 19th century landmark of Paris, meant following strict guidelines concerning the historical character of the monument: nothing was allowed to touch any of the walls, pillars or ceiling.
The Studio’s installation, titled the « Phantom’s Phantom » will amplify the main contrasting qualities of the space: intimacy, openness, and asymmetry. By using a mirrors system in which carefully selected images are infinitely reflected, the space of the Phantom is amplified, inviting the visitor to stay and experience the space in a new unique way.