DAEYANG GALLERY AND HOUSE
by Steven Holl Architects
Daeyang Gallery and House by Steven Holl Architects from Dezeen on Vimeo.
The private
gallery and house is sited in the hills of the Kangbuk section of Seoul, Korea.
The basic geometry of the building is inspired by a 1967 sketch for a
music score by the composer Istvan Anhalt, “Symphony of Modules,” which was
discovered in a book by John Cage titled “Notations.”
Three pavilions - one for entry, one residence, and one
event space - appear to push upward from a continuous gallery level below. A
sheet of water establishes the plane of reference from above and below.
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| Istvan Anhalt, “Symphony of Modules” | Daeyang Gallery and House |
After passing through a bamboo formed garden wall at the
entry court, ascending steps into the entry pavilion bring the viewer at elbow
height with the unifying sheet of water. Here, at the center of this place is
an inner feeling with the sky, water, vegetation and the reddened patina of the
copper walls all reflected in different ways.
The red and charcoal stained wood interiors of the pavilions
are activated by skylight strips of clear glass that are cut into the roof.
Sunlight turns and bends around the inner spaces, animating them with the
changing light of each season and throughout the day. Like a cesura in music,
strips of glass lenses in the base of the pool break through the surface, bringing dappled light to the white plaster walls and
white granite floor of the gallery below.
Exteriors are a rain screen of custom patinated copper,
which ages naturally within the landscape. The Daeyang Gallery and House is heated and cooled with geothermal wells.
Photos by Iwan Baan
from Steven Holl Architects: The Architectonics of Music
The relationship between music and architecture has been for
several years now Steven Holl’s research instrument of choice at Columbia
University, by which he pulls his craft and its rules back to a central
position aimed at developing the full potential of architecture. Music,
like architecture, is an immersive experience – it surrounds you. One can turn
away from a painting or a work of sculpture, while music and architecture
engulf the body in space. “Architectonics of Music” records the sixth in a
series of studios taught at Columbia University on music and architecture. They
are part of a larger project to develop cross-disciplinary,
inspiration-provoking work on new architectural languages. Taught with
architect Dimitra Tsachrelia and composer Raphael Mostel, this studio began
with a four-week experiment translating a music excerpt into space, material
and form. In the first half of the studio, six teams of two students selected
works of 20thcentury composers with an eye to the geometric potential of
translation to architecture. The second half of the studio focused on
transcribing the language experiment at the Center for Contemporary Music
Research in Athens, established by Iannis Xenakis.
The students chose from three potential sites for their experiments. Research
into music and architecture moves forward at a time when architecture pedagogy
is diffused, worn out. Schools of architecture today seem directionless.
Postmodernism and deconstruction have passed into history, while the euphoria
of technique in “parametrics” promises a lack of idea and spirit, and neglect
of the importance of scale, material, detail, proportion and light. Yet we
continue to see potential in future architecture as open to experiment and as
connected to spirit. While we ask, “What is architecture?” we also ask, “What
is music?”
