CMY Pavilion

Remember Bernard Tschumi’s Glass video gallery for Groningen’s ‘What a wonderful world!’ event? Yes, that one. In the year 1990, ‘What a wonderful world!’ event was organized to celebrate the 950th anniversary of the city of Groningen in five different pavilions. Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi was among the five invited famous ‘Deconstructivists’ of that time, who were asked to present the the image of the city and nature of public spaces in an innovative way. In line with this thought, Tschumi designed a pavilion made completely of glass. Today, his work was re-interpreted as the CMY Pavilion by the Rotterdam based design office “shift A+U”. In reference to Tschumi’s glass pavilion, images and videos of the city were projected onto the glass walls. The resulting irony of it was that the private behavior of watching TV was turned into a public activity and the spectators became the show themselves. Tschumi’s design was metaphorical about trans-formative and dynamic urbanism, which he interpreted into a tilted glass form.

Photography By© René de Wit

Now, shift A+U re-interpreted it into the CMY Pavilion (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) keeping Tschumi’s original concept intact. They used translucent colored film wrapped diagonally across the entire pavilion. By wrapping the film diagonally, Tschumi’s original tilt was further enhanced. As the visitors walk through the pavilion, they perceive it as a three dimensional graphic with the colorful diagonal bands visually overlapping at different angles, creating secondary shades of RGB. These shifting colors and patterns converge with the cityscape, further enhancing Tschumi’s ideas about the constantly evolving and transformative urban form.

Photography By© René de Wit

Architects: Shift architecture urbanism
Location: Hereplein, 9711 Groningen, Netherlands
Architect in Charge: Thijs van Bijsterveldt, Oana Rades, Harm Timmermans
Photographs: René de Wit , Courtesy of Shift architecture urbanism