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Space of Silence
Artek Pavilion is a glimpse of a future past
Nothing old is ever reborn but neither does it totally disappear. And that which has once born, will always reappear in new form. – Alvar Aalto
Walking through the long white pavilion on a lot filled with palm trees in Miami's Design District, past weathered stools and old worn chairs in one-room-schoolhouse colors, we knew there was a mystery here we were not grasping. Touring the dozens of art fairs and galleries that crowd Miami during the first week of each December, we had arrived at Design Miami. Like characters in science fiction, we'd stepped into a world very much like our own, yet somehow different. Was this the future? Or the past? Was this art?
"This material is really weird," my friend observed, his eyes scanning the structure like a space traveler gradually realizing that the walls are oozing goo.
He would observe the material: He's a cinematographer and highly skilled camera technician. He pays attention to the outside world and the relationships among material things. I am always looking for the story. Little did I know, the material was the story.
"The pavilion is made from a wood composite," we overheard a gentleman telling another group of perplexed gallery goers. Incongruously dressed in a blue button-down oxford, this was no art-fair hipster but a pitchman for UPM, a global company that manufactures paper and plastic labels, "like this," he said, pointing to the peeling label on his bottled water.
"We've had stiletto heels up and down all day long and just look at it," he said proudly, gesturing toward the sturdy, putty-colored pavilion floor. It did kind of look like crunched-up labels all stuck together — really stuck together — and mixed with sand.
Walking through the long white pavilion on a lot filled with palm trees in Miami's Design District, past weathered stools and old worn chairs in one-room-schoolhouse colors, we knew there was a mystery here we were not grasping. Touring the dozens of art fairs and galleries that crowd Miami during the first week of each December, we had arrived at Design Miami. Like characters in science fiction, we'd stepped into a world very much like our own, yet somehow different. Was this the future? Or the past? Was this art?
"This material is really weird," my friend observed, his eyes scanning the structure like a space traveler gradually realizing that the walls are oozing goo.
He would observe the material: He's a cinematographer and highly skilled camera technician. He pays attention to the outside world and the relationships among material things. I am always looking for the story. Little did I know, the material was the story.
"The pavilion is made from a wood composite," we overheard a gentleman telling another group of perplexed gallery goers. Incongruously dressed in a blue button-down oxford, this was no art-fair hipster but a pitchman for UPM, a global company that manufactures paper and plastic labels, "like this," he said, pointing to the peeling label on his bottled water.
"We've had stiletto heels up and down all day long and just look at it," he said proudly, gesturing toward the sturdy, putty-colored pavilion floor. It did kind of look like crunched-up labels all stuck together — really stuck together — and mixed with sand.
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