Big-head Sur: sculpture v. architecture at P.S.1
James Westcott
Apprehending this summer’s architecture installation in P.S.1’s courtyard is very difficult: it’s a plasticy, skeletal, undulating, and strangely sci-fi sculpture that snakes off into other sections of the compound, and it refuses to resolve into a legible pattern along the way. It’s both an alien landing and an archeological dig.
The spindly monster, called Sur, was designed by the California-based architecture, product, and motion-design firm Xefirotarch, and comprises an intricate constellation of freestanding curved aluminum poles covered in zipped-on grey spandex, and a deep red styrofoam and urethane base plate that’s contoured like a map but not like an actual landscape. The spinal column curves, dips, and occasionally seems to take off. The structure offers intermittent shelter and shade, and occasionally tunnel-like effects.
Xefirotarch, headed by Hernan Diaz Alonso, are the winners of P.S.1’s 6th annual Young Architect Program competition. The task is to design an experimental structure that might–it’s not clear whether this function is incidental or integral–offer shade and respite to the summer revelers at P.S.1’s weekly outdoor parties, the first of which takes place this Saturday, July 2.
But unlike last year’s piece–nARCHITECT’s mushrooming bamboo canopy and wooden deck, which surrounded a kidney-shaped paddling pool and a series of mist-makers–Sur seems to be more about itself than about offering an inviting place to relax and cool off. It boldly announces itself there in the gravel and concrete compound, but seems to have–and give–no invitation, and it certainly offers no friendly introduction.
I wonder how this Saturday’s party-goers will interact with Sur? The tight curves and deep troughs of the main part of the base plate might lead to interesting seating configurations and convergences. But this area, together with the slippery, bulbous "benches" (if that’s what they are)–a series of which breaks off from the main structure like lined-up carcasses of strange animals–just doesn’t look very comfortable, not even as a (secretly deliberate) side-effect of the overall concept. You would have a hard time slouching on them. Up-close, the red, resinous material reveals itself as being incredibly hard and surprisingly flawed with scratches, bubbles, and paint pile-ups. While sitting on–or in–the structure, you probably wouldn’t be able to think about anything other than the domineering form surrounding you. With the amazingly arcing steel struts and the spandex canopy that grows from them like some digital organism, the piece looks like it doesn’t know how to exist in the world, only on the computer screen, where it began.
Diaz has said that Xefirotarch runs a completely paperless office. All designing must be done exclusively on the computer. This might be why Sur ends up a rather too-fantastical and arbitrary design, a sci-fi showboat lacking the human touch. It seems unconcerned with use value–fair enough–but also refuses to justify its existence, and its form, in any way. Sur is stunning to look at–or, at least, it is stunning in its implacableness–but the structure is intellectual rather than intelligent, sculptural rather than architectural. It doesn’t invite dwelling, like architecture should.
Such an uncompromisingly aesthetic and experimental approach is what Xefirotarch is about. The firm is influenced by the 1960s and 70s work of Peter Eisenman, who rejected Walter Gropius’ modernist belief that form follows function. Instead, the idea was that architecture can emerge from the rules of drawing rather than from the specific needs of a building. Now, it’s the rules of a computer program–in this case Maya visual effects and film animation software–that determine the form. Anything can be designed on a computer, and, especially in a licentious venue like P.S.1, almost anything can be built (so long as it comes in under the $60,000 winner’s budget). But a structure that doesn’t answer for itself or have much of a conversation at all with the context leaves one feeling frustrated and ignored, even if the wow-factor is here in abundance.
