Snarkitecture’s The Beach is a giant pit of a million plastic balls has taken over the National Building Museum in Washington DC, creating a synthetic seaside inside the 19th-century building’s Great Hall, which rises 159 feet (48 metres) and is supported by eight colossal Corinthian columns, in the National Building Museum.

The Beach, designed by New York-based practice Snarkitecture, spreads across a 10,000sqft (929sqm)space in the former US Pension Bureau HQ –the National Building Museum was conceived by US army officer and architect Montgomery C Meigs. A walled mirror gives the impression of an endless ‘ocean’ while a 50ft (15 metre) wide shoreline is sprinkled with beach chairs and parasols to replicate the experience of visiting a real beach. Gallery-goers can plunge into the plastic ‘water’ or lounge around, soaking up the architecture.

‘Although it is bound to be an entertaining retreat from the summer heat for our visitors, it also turns our understanding of the natural environment on its head and offers us the opportunity to question our own expectations of the built environment,’ says Chase Rynd, executive director of the National Building Museum, a nonprofit institution.

To help pay for this year's installation, the museum hosted a crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo and raised $12,155 (€11,106) from a total of 159 people. Its goal was $10,000 (€9,135).The installation’s stark white palette makes it stand apart from its palatial setting in the National Building Museum’s Great Hall. Snarkitecture’s The Beach follows last summer’s similarly immersive BIG Maze installation by the Bjarke Ingels Group.

Snarkitecture co-founder Alex Mustonen says the firm wanted to ‘create an architectural installation that reimagines the qualities and possibilities of material; encourages exploration and interaction with one’s surroundings; and offers an unexpected and memorable landscape for visitors to relax and socialize within.’ and he adds, ‘Snarkitecture distinguishes itself by operating in the territory between art and architecture, emphasising the transformation of the familiar into the extraordinary and the National Building Museum has been a devoted supporter of our aspirations.’

Snarkitecture was established in 2008 by Alex Mustonen and Daniel Arsham, who met while studying at The Cooper Union in New York.

Venue.- National Building Museum, 401 F Street NW, Washington, D.C. US
Dates.- July 4, 2015 - September 7, 2015

 

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Snarkitecture (New York 2008) is a collaborative and experimental practice operating in territories between art and architecture. The name is drawn from Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of The Snark, a poem describing an “impossible voyage of an improbable crew to find an inconceivable creature.” Snarkitecture investigates the unknown within architecture – the indefinable moments created by manipulating and reinterpreting existing materials, structures and programs to spectacular effect.

Exploring the boundaries of disciplines, the studio designs permanent, architectural scale projects and functional objects with new and imaginative purposes. Snarkitecture’s approach focuses on the viewer’s experience and memory, creating moments of wonder and interaction that allow people to engage directly with their surrounding environment. By transforming the familiar into the extraordinary, Snarkitecture makes architecture perform the unexpected.

Best known for their playful approach to material and the reinterpretation of everyday objects and environments—from the raw, yet refined interiors of various Kith and COS stores to immersive installations at Salone del Mobile, the New Museum, Design Miami, and more—the studio’s tenth anniversary represents an opportune time to explore past work in a brand new format.

Snarkitecture was established by Alex Mustonen and Daniel Arsham and is represented by Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin.

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