Małgorzata Kuciewicz and Simone De Iacobis of Centrala have designed a celestial intervention in three parts in the monastery and its garden. For this De Iacobis and Kuciewicz use one of the watchtowers, the house without the roof (‘cabrio house’) and the cistern.Together these locations allow for the experience of the sky in three different ways: directly, reflected and imagined.
With modest gestures, the sites are transformed into observatories to connect, and reconnect with the cosmos. They help to arouse an existential awareness, both cerebral and visceral, that we live ‘submerged at the bottom of an ocean of the element air’, as Evangelista Torricelli described it, poetically yet factually, in 1644.
In each site there is a black circle. One circle hangs under the oculus of the cistern. Daylight is washing into the space but the circle obscures the view of the sky, creating a shadow on the floor, like a timeless gnomon.
In the watchtower the circle works as a blinker, restricting the buildings original use, of the surveillance of the land below. The blinker directs the view to the skies.
The circle in the cabrio house is a shallow reflecting pool that is best appreciated at night when it mirrors the starlit firmament.
Drawing upon the custom-made furniture traditionally used in astronomical observatories Centrala has designed a stool, a stepladder chair and a recliner, which enhance the experience of being immersed in direct, reflected and imagined skies. The stool enable the viewer to turn around and get a 360-degree horizontal view from the elevated point in tower. From the stepladder it is possible to take in the firmament by looking down into the reflective pond. The recliner makes it comfortable to look up in the cistern and to imagine the sky above.
Hans Ibelings
“I’ve got the sky behind my back, at hand, and on my eyelids.
The sky binds me tight
and sweeps me off my feet.”
Wiesława Szymborska, The Sky, 1993
Participating artists, architects:
Chantal Akerman, Christian Andersson, Jonathas de Andrade, Vasco Araújo, arquivo mangue, Lina Bo Bardi, Taysir Batniji, Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, Arno Brandlhuber e/and Constanze Haas, Inês Brites, Adam Broomberg e/and Rafael Gonzalez, Alberto Carneiro, Centrala, Rui Chafes e/and Candura, Julian Charrière, Sandro Chia, Colectivo SEM-FIM, Luisa Cunha, Eva Davidova, Thomas Demand, Forensic Architecture, Arturo Franco, Nan Goldin, Shilpa Gupta, Inside Outside, Kosmos, Juha Lilja, Mário Macilau, Fina Miralles, Adriana Molder, Office of Adrian Phiffer, Pezo von Ellrichshausen, João Salema, Taryn Simon, Charles Stankievech, Mungo Thomson, Maria Trabulo, Pedro Vaz, Carlos Ferrand Zavala, Anarchism and Planning, Three rooms, Xenia — aNC, Atelier Local, Ateliermob, Colectivo Warehouse, Fala, fr-ia, JQTS, Nuno Valentim, Paula Santos, Pedra Líquida,
