As a designer of public spaces, the daily tendency is to get mired in bureaucracies, codes, liabilities, and economics. We are creating real structures that need to keep people warm, dry, well lit, and functioning in whatever it is they do for a hundred years or more. It is scary to push the envelope, not only because of the aforementioned list of concerns, but because reputation is such a fine line. Cross that line in a positive manner, and the rewards can be exhilarating, being known as someone who is a creative, a trendsetter, a person with vision. Cross it too far, and words like reckless, expensive, and irresponsible leap to the foreground. Word of mouth is everything in this business, and nearly everyone can find a parallel in their own work: lines that you are instructed not to cross, but beg further exploration.
Public art, and contemporary art in particular, is the perfect forum for exploring and destroying architectural and cultural boundaries. Often time limited, most likely budget constrained, built by "amateurs", often using found or inexpensive or re-purposed materials, pieces of contemporary art are able to move quickly, to be much more reactive to culture and to establish the bleeding edge of our understanding of space, form, and light. The public nature of most contemporary art ensures that everyone is exposed to it, has to walk through and around it, and as a result is challenged to question what on earth this bizarre creation is, why it looks the way it does, and why it was done. Public art breaks-in our future best clients. It inspires all designers to look at the world differently, to break down common assumptions about materials, construction, aesthetics, and site.
Two weeks before the opening of CAFKA, I was approached by the organizers to help produce architectural drawings for two of the pieces, which the City had deemed large and complex enough to require building permits. The City of Kitchener reviewed and approved them within hours, showing exceptional support for the show. “The Green Room” by Water Van Broekhuizen and “Buttress” by Andrew Burton commenced construction almost immediately, with 5 days and counting before the show opened. I then spent a gorgeous day in Victoria Park helping to construct Green Room, working with Walter and 4 other volunteers to realize his vision. The result is a masterpiece. Walter has created a space for intense experience, surrounding a giant willow tree on the edge of the water. Inside the green room, the world is reduced to simple elements. The bark of the tree, the play of shadows from the branches and leaves across the white curved walls, and the falling leaves are the first impressions. Stay awhile, and you realize that the view through the small entrance is of rippling water, that sounds are muted, and that the wind swirls interestingly around the walls. Both my one year old and eight year old sons spent the better part of an hour inside: quiet, exploring, happy. Stay longer and the best experience emerges, the opportunity to watch as others enter, walk around, and leave. The attitudes range from disdain, through indifference, all the way to reverence. The reverent ones are potential future clients.
Too often art is pigeonholed in galleries, hung on walls, constrained to canvasses or computer screens. The kind of experience to be had in Green Room can't be done any other way, and would never be done if not for forums like CAFKA. And it is exactly that kind of experience which not only establishes new boundaries for buildings, but in this case in particular, reminds us of fundamental qualities of space, the importance of silence, and the quiet intensity of the natural world. Chances are this article is being read long after Green Room is gone. You will just have to do your part to encourage its successors.
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