Year: 2017
Project Title:  Vista Pavilion
Place / Event: USITT/USA Prague Quadrennial 2019 Exhibit Design Competition
Type: Architectural design competition entry
Organiser / Support: USITT

VISTA was created as the Ephemera Collective’s answer to a selected architects’ call for contributions commissioned by the American association USITT – The Association for Performing Arts & Entertainment Professionals.

The idea was to create a spatial design item for the purpose of the association’s exhibit at the world famous manifestation PQ2019 (The Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space). Relaying on a main topic of the american national exhibit – Porous Borders – VISTA offered an architectural instalation that was aniticipated to be the best possible answer for the exhibition space.

First of all, it would not prevail over the content of the exhibition. In addition to that, architecturally speaking, it would define the space in a void in a particular way, which would make it – The Place (open to accommodate the action). In a tough international competition, VISTA got through many circles of the selection process, yet remained unrealized.

Nothing can happen unless it happens somewhere.

Meta Hočevar,
Play Spaces

A simple understanding of the term border makes us believe that, without a question, there exists an embodied vertical division between people, countries, identities and spaces. What happens when a border becomes a solid? Not liquid, not fluid, not transparent; when a border loses its ability to show the other side? What happens when a border becomes an entity which hermetically closes us inside our own circles and our own minds, ultimately losing even the ability to reflect? 

In order to grow, to prosper, to understand, to feel we need borders to be not sealed, but porous.  

Conceived as a recovered/reinvented perspective The Vista Pavilion (or simply Vista) offers a space for the encounter. It is a beautiful white individual experience of place, of people, of culture, of the environment, of the Other. Named after the Italian word for the view, Vista represents a spatial demarcation that offers a different perspective on borders. We have chosen to define an event-space by the horizontal and not the vertical planes. Two major white parallel elements calmly gravitate one to another, condensing the energies between them. Floating above on steel cables, this artificial sky carries a huge projection screen, with a powerful projector above it. The landscape beneath has a multifunctional character. Simultaneously, it is a place for rest, for gathering, for the audience to feel the energy of the place and to stand, sit or lie down diving into an experience of immersion. While occupying this spot, the audience has the opportunity to look above and get introduced to the exceptional performance design practices – works chosen to be presented by the United States National Exhibition curator, by putting on the headphones, positioned across the pavilion. The works are planned to be presented as short videos of performances, of the overall performance designs, of the interviews with the artists, of their studios, etc. The audience has also the possibility to look through the carefully designed holes in the landscape, and through the magnifying glass to see real actual scaled models stored and positioned in the boxes beneath the surface. Also, the audience could choose to find their place in Vista, close their eyes and just enjoy the sound of the whole PQ turmoil – the environment around them. To have a silent moment. An intimate spectacle of a sort.

This open concept of captured energy allows the audience to choose their experience and to feel belonging to place. As Vista stands for a mental view of a succession of remembered, anticipated, seen, felt or possible events, all of these experiences might be brought to life here.”

E.C.