NOMINATED @ European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award 2015.
CONNECTIONS / “The violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, red house” by Raphaël Hefti . . .
. . . mediates the light of Arles, projected onto the roof of the gift shop and lobby of the Vincent van Gogh Foundation, like a disassembled kaleidoscope.
Invited by the Foundation’s Artistic Director, Bice Curiger, the Swiss artist delivered a new instalment in his continued work on the reflection/non-reflection of glass. Weaving a close dialogue not only with Fluor’s architecture but also with new technologies, he put dichroic glass in the spotlight, one of his preferred mediums for playing with opacity and transparency offered by the different layers of oxides.
Arranged in a conscious disorder on the roof of the gift shop and lobby, itself made of glass, the 78 glass plates are suspended above the entry with varying degrees of opacity and reflectiveness. Of all different sizes and colours, they make the light dance on the walls and into the courtyard following the passage of the sun.
By absorbing ultraviolet rays, they also help maintain a temperate climate inside the space.
