McGill University School of Architecture, April 2015
Naples, Campania, Italy
Set in the beautiful, decaying city of Naples, the Institute emerges as austerely minimal, deliberately mute and enigmatic object. House of film archives, exhibition and projections, it sits aloof from context, in a way that expresses a strange otherworldliness, appearing to be part of some forgotten or alien language of architecture. The building plays a game with its own ascetic imagery, hiding labyrinthine and immersive interiors within its cubic, ahistorical form. Solid, architectural matter gets imprinted with immaterial, filmic matter – memory and light disintegrate the concrete in a catalog of design interventions such as engravings, perforations, incrustations or impressions. The multiple surfaces of the Institute episodically transform into projection opportunities.
