Pavilion Propositions
Nine Points on an Architectural Phenomenon
- Nine propositions to reclaim the pavilion as an architectural topic
- Frames the pavilion as a significant phenomenon to discuss the place of architecture in culture
Authors: Wouter Davidts, John Macarthur, Susan Holden, Ashley Paine
Design: Sam de Groot
Series: vis-à-vis
2018, Valiz with University of Queensland (ATCH, Architecture Theory Criticism and History Research Centre) and Ghent University | paperback | 95 pp. | 23.5 cm x 16.5 cm (portrait size) | English | ISBN 978-94-92095-50-3
Pavilion Propositions addresses the contemporary pavilion phenomenon and those often temporary and functionless architectural structures commissioned and exhibited by art institutions around the world (including the annual Serpentine Pavilion in London, Young Architects Program in New York and the MPavilion in Melbourne). Despite its ubiquity, and popular success, the contemporary pavilion has been inconsistently theorized and frequently disparaged.
This thought-provoking book reclaims the pavilion as an architectural topic, against those who would dismiss the phenomenon as symptomatic of a simple or absolute exhaustion of the critical potential of architecture's intersection with art. The pavilion phenomenon also occasions a timely interrogation of larger questions that concern the changing relations between culture and the economy - changes that are shifting the planes on which architecture and art meet.