Design Development
In 2015, the Public Art Fund invited Danish artist Jeppe Hein to install an expansive exhibition of his public art works at Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York. At the time, I was working as one of Jeppe's staff architects in his Berlin studio, so I was assigned the task of designing some new benches for the exhibition. Jeppe Hein had already established his concept of the Modified Social Bench in previous projects, explaining that the "bench designs borrow their basic form from the ubiquitous park or garden bench, but are altered to various degrees to make the act of sitting a conscious physical endeavor." We started the design process by researching the existing benches of New York City, particularly those found at Central Park, because of the fun way they follow the curves of the park paths and connect in long undulating lines.
With those Central Park precedents as inspiration, it was my task to come up with some new versions of Jeppe's tried and tested idea of the Modified Social Bench. Using a 3d modeling program called Rhino, I came up with about forty different bench designs for Jeppe to choose from. Of the sixteen benches that were installed in the exhibition, five were from my collection of new designs and the other eleven were older designs remade and repainted for this context. Below are some renderings of four of the benches I designed for the exhibition.
In addition to the benches, I was involved in proposing some design ideas for a mirror labyrinth with fellow architect Robert Banovic. Using Rhino and a plugin called Grasshopper, we tested out multiple iterations of the mirror labyrinth design before Jeppe settled on the plan and elevation below. The varying heights of the mirrored pillars were inspired by the skyline of New York City, which stood as the backdrop to the installation across the water from Brooklyn Bridge Park.
Robert brought the 3d model into a program called Cinema4D in order to create the renderings below:
Please Touch the Art by Studio Jeppe Hein
The final exhibition, which included a selection of sixteen benches, a mirror labyrinth, and a water pavilion, was on display in Brooklyn Bridge Park from May 2015 to April 2016. Since I left the studio in late 2014 to move back to the States, my involvement in this project was only in the design development phase. The good people at Studio Jeppe Hein did the hard work of taking the designs and making them real in time for installation in May 2015. Below are the photos I took of the final installation when I visited the park for the opening day of the exhibition (along with some press photos by James Ewing).
Modified Social Benches NY
Photo by James Ewing
Photo by James Ewing
Photo by James Ewing
Mirror Labyrinth NY
Jeppe's concept of the Mirror Labyrinth is something special when you have the chance to experience it in person. Photos do not fully do it justice, because not only do the mirrored pillars seem to blend into the surroundings, they also completely distort your understanding of where you are as you walk around, because the reflections so effectively chop up and scramble your image of what is in front and behind you. The below installation in Brooklyn Bridge Park was a new version of a concept that existed in many other forms in many other exhibitions before this. In describing the original mirror labyrinth idea, Jeppe Hein wrote, "The mirrored surfaces reflect not only the viewers and their surroundings, but also the adjacent mirrors. Physical space is visible in the gap between the vertical lamellae, and is inserted between the mirror images. The multifaceted reflection therefore produces a fragmented view of the space, surrounding the viewer with an unfamiliar and disorienting environment similar to that of a labyrinth."
Photo by James Ewing
Photo by James EwingAppearing Rooms Water Pavilion
The water pavilion is another concept that has been around for many years in Jeppe Hein's work. The installation at Brooklyn Bridge Park was only on view for the first four months of the exhibition. Like most of Jeppe's art, the water pavilion is fully interactive. Walls of water are constantly shooting up to change the configuration of spaces in the pavilion. Visitors experience the thrill of jumping between rooms when openings present themselves in the water walls, never knowing when and where the next wall will shoot up and lock you where you're standing. I was not involved in the design of this particular water pavilion, but it was definitely one of the most popular and exciting parts of the exhibition.
Photo by James Ewing
Photo by James EwingReflections
By giving the exhibition the title Please Touch the Art, Jeppe Hein made a clear distinction between his art and the art found on gallery walls. He has built his career on the idea of taking away the wall between spectator and artist, and making art a more accessible and fun part of public life. I worked in his studio from 2012 to 2014 and his concept of public art has significantly inspired my own work and my goals for my career.
Visiting the opening day of the exhibition at Brooklyn Bridge Park was an eye-opening experience for me because I was able to see first-hand the effect public art can have on the community. Watching toddlers line up to slide down the benches, watching strangers strike up conversation to discuss their favorite designs, watching visitors' jaws drop as they walked carefully through the mirror labyrinth - all of these images have stuck with me to this day. Inspired by my experiences at Studio Jeppe Hein, I have been designing some of my own public art concepts over the past year, and I'm excited to start sharing some of my new ideas on Steemit in the coming weeks. I hope you'll follow along and offer your feedback as I develop my ideas further!
Funky Benches in Copenhagen | Colossal Kugelbahn in France
Let me know what you think of this project in the comments below.
