Today we show Izaskun Chinchilla's contribution to the international event of contemporary art in Madrid, which will be open until Sunday 28th. The architect and her team have been commissioned to design the VIP room, which is structured around some extra large folding screens made of reused household items. Inside the VIP room is G'Vine's stand, for which they have been inspired by the values of the gin brand, creating a space in which traditional rural architecture or recycled materials, are handled with digital technology and mixed with new materials.
Description of the project by Izaskun Chinchilla Architects
G'vine stand for ARCO 2016 offers visitors a classic challenge in the art of many times and places: distinguish reality from fiction, the material and fiction from daydreams and desires. The visitors will approach the stand persuaded by the distant appearances, an urban apartment that could well be in Paris or in another city in France. Just in the beginning the visitor will discover, however, that it is difficult to know if he or she is inside the apartment, overlooking a garden outside, or outside, scanning the privacy of others from a window. He or she is not sure if the balcony on the right will leave the warm interior air out into the city and blow the curtains or if, in fact, bring a breath of outside populated with branches and botanicals. You can not ensure that behind the bar you are watching a small greenhouse that would be the dream of every urbanite when searching for an apartment in a big city or whether in fact you are in the greenhouse and remember the warmth of home. If you pay more attention you will discover fire and gardens enclosed in bottles and will get some of the best selfies of the fair!
To design this space Izaskun Chinchilla Architects has been inspired by many of the things that have also inspired the construction of the Gvine brand. These include:
Inspiration research in botany and nature. The studio Izaskun Chinchilla Architects has been characterized by reconcile the vernacular and rural culture with innovation. In our projects, passive cooling techniques, as used in traditional rural architecture or recycled materials, are handled with digital technology, combined into geometric requiring advanced structural calculation and mixed with interactive elements and new materials. On many occasions the ancient techniques are re visited thanks to digital knowledge and research. G'vine has a similar attitude combining traditional farming techniques with elaborate botanical experimentation that has led them to create the world's only Gin made from grapes. We believe that this attitude draws a sustainable and exciting future for Europe's rural environments.
Estrangement from the everyday. G'Vine gin commits to understanding urban life in an alternative way. G'Vine is a product for those who can uncover hidden realities in something they see every day. Can the curtains' shadows tell stories? Does every corner of Paris look different when you travel by bike? Can the best bed in the world be on a balcony? Can beGin be made of grapes?. Izaskun Chinchilla Architects shares this design philosophy. Our design is based on an understanding of what we call the 3rd industrialization in which it is much cheaper to buy an umbrella that comes from China than one made in the corner of the street. It is much cheaper to buy furniture from a multinational and reuse its parts with other purpose than to buy wood. Now, a family of 4 members has, in Europe, hundreds of thousands of objects, when in the 30s it had a media of 50 objects. These objects are usually discarded when they have only met 30 percent of their useful life. Our architecture, instead of using raw materials, it is often made with discarded objects. In our study we look at everything that is around us as if it could become something else.
Europe and culture. For better or worse we consider ourselves as a profoundly European study. In Europe the weight of culture involves everything you do. There is a culture of drawing, models, color, natural materials. This old Europe that has everything it needs cares for the quality and gives for granted the principles derived from social democracy. These maxims are embedded in our projects. Each object is intense ... it is full of design, references and precedents, has behind a culture which is recognized. G'vine is a brand deeply devout of French culture, tradition of cognac, understanding that drinking with someone involves talking, and involves turning the conversation into an art ...
Additionally G'vine's stand is part of our design for the ARCO VIP room for which the outlines of inspiration are summarized as follows:
The VIP room will be structured around a series of screens larger than usual. The panels of these screens, have in common with their Chinese predecessors, that they are able to tell stories. If the stories of the ancients screens spoke of heroic journeys and scenes in lush gardens, ours talk about the lives of contemporary families and their cities.
To bring bits of those lives, our folding screens are constructed from household items used in ARCO for differently way than usual and often reused. Many ladders, full of drops of different colored paints and chalkiness, form porticos, bars and supporting structures. Windows discarded, and recycled, separating rooms and provide privacy. Overlapping layers of paint on these windows and stairs and their damages, tell us about ballgames, storm days and stories that remain in the memory of those who lived many homes.
Like traditional folding screens, separating our domestic stories from the ones outside: they are the thin skin that separates the house and the world. Also like the folding screens than came to Europe from China in the sixteenth century, ours will invite the visitor to move with curiosity throughout teh space; th space invite you to visit it and to make your own journey. Visitors who accept that invitation, will accompany us in a tribute to the streets where food is served, where there is dance and you can buy and sell, where public space has a sense of complete coexistence. In the room, besides recreating domestic memories of many houses, visitors will believe they are in busy streets, full of terraces, in London, Paris, Dublin, Athens, Aleppo, Istanbul or Bali.
To compose this great collage, we were inspired by many works of art, but most particularly, we wanted to pay homage to Marcel Duchamp's Large Glass. The visual riddle that this work offers, has made it possible to imagine a space where furniture by El Corte Ingles shows their ability to recreate almost any environment. We hope that inspiration also awakes in the visitor a creative look to its surroundings and leaves the VIP room thinking that, perhaps, there may be a small cabin with the remnants of discarded furniture stored in the garage. Share the rediscovery of the beauty of what used and extend the belief that our imagination can give new life to what is going to throw to Izaskun Chinchilla Architects, a small contribution to address the ecological crisis of our planet.
