Untitled 09

location: Venice, Italy

“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception“
Aldous Huxley

“The body is a house of many doors: there we all sit, showing ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us.”
Robert Louis Stevenson

There is no form/shape in our project. There is no architectural object, only rooms… We want to produce pure space, modulated by light and materialized
in two antagonistic rooms: a bright/soft/silent room (ROOM 1) and a dark/hard/noisy room (ROOM 2). The two rooms are connected through 8 identical doors
presented like 8 possible choices that ironically lead into the same interstitial space (ROOM 2). The only difference between the doors is their relative
position to the limits of ROOM 2. With the opening of these doors, the 2 segregated spaces are temporarily linked by a beam of light coming from the door
opening. Each person that opens a door is entitled to its own temporary beam of light that guides him/her from the brightness of ROOM 1 into the darkness
of ROOM 2.

ROOM 1 | The (COMMON) SPACE of the body
Metaphorically, we can argue that the bright/soft/silent room is a representation of DESIRE and APPEARANCES, which is a core concept of the Consumer Society.
Visitors can see each other in this space, but they cannot hear each other. The environment is soft, white, very bright and completely sound proof.

ROOM 2 | The (COMMON) SPACE of the mind
On the other hand, the dark/hard/noisy room represents CONSCIENCE and it becomes the space where all the other visitors are present as recurring voices in
one’s mind but there are invisible to the naked eye. The atmosphere is dark, hard, reflective and noisy.

LIGHT | The (PASSING) TIME
The two ROOMS are connected through LIGHT. As architects we perceive light as the one of the most important elements shaping the space. LIGHT is essential
to life and to the making of architecture. LIGHT is also a powerful sign for the passage of time – its presence or absence signals the day/night cycle and
regulates our metabolism. In this instance LIGHT becomes the connection between two ROOMS, one flowing into the other, shaped by the door opening. The
presence of LIGHT in ROOM 2 is regulated by the closing mechanism of the door which will slowly reduce its presence until complete disappearance.



design: 2012

type: competition

project status: 1st Mention

with: arch. Dan Felix Paraschiv, arch. Adina Socol, arch. Matei Bogoescu, arch. Ana Maria Labo, arch. Vlad Slavic

images: bozin szekely architects