Folding Landscape / East and West: Venice Biennale 2018

We proposed a composite installation focussing on two compatible projects, getting inside the idea and outside the form of two buildings in utterly different waterside locations and at wildly different scales. A current project in the West of Ireland and a recent competition design in China. A civic space for public gatherings and studio retreat at the end of the pier in Roundstone Connemara and a City of Opera with interlocking foyers, theatres and roof-gardens at the bend in the river in Shanghai. The installation plays on the scale difference between the two projects, but the contrast in scale does not diminish the generosity of social ambition or the physical presence of the architecture.
The first thing the visitor will notice is the matching roofscape of both projects, with their shared sawtooth skyline rising between the columns of the Corderie. The buildings are similar in outline, but different in scale, one modelled at scale 1:10, the other at scale 1:2.5. From outside, you can walk into the Roundstone volume (West, at 1:2.5) and can see into the Shanghai section (East, at 1:10).Flanking the installation are two tables, displaying sketches, models and drawings of each project. The installation, distinctive in its profile, is placed centrally between the two brick columns. A stair leads up, towards the south-facing Corderie window, climbing up in a sunlit passageway between two seemingly similar architectural elements. The stair divides at the half-landing, with one flight leading on up towards the window, allowing you look out the old high window, and then to turn to stand on the rooftop auditorium of the Shanghai City of Opera. The second leg of the same divided stair leads you down again, to turn into the gathering hall of the Roundstone project, and from there, back out into the rope-walk, and on with your journey through the Biennale.