Field / Pezo von Ellrichshausen
Photo by Mauricio Pezo
Project: Field
Location: Arts Quad, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
Client: AAP, Escuela de Arquitectura, Cornell University
Architects: Mauricio Pezo, Sofia von Ellrichshausen, Yehre Suh
Collaborators: Sae-Jun Ahn, Laura Amaya, Jesica Bello, John Best, Irina Chernyakova, Constanza Cortes, Karen Drummund, Monica Alexandra Freundt, Thea von Geldern, Lisa Hollywood, Amanda Lee Huang, Soyoung Jung, Kyle Keene, Jina Kim, Viola Diane Kosseda, Weonyoung Joy Lee, Chris Leonberg, Timothy Liddell, Jacqueline Liu, Hana Ovcina, Mia Ovcina, Mansi Ajit Pandey, Anna Pelavin, Hilary Pinnington, Mitchell W. Pride, Lorena Quintana, Ashley Reed, Samuel J. Reilly, Landon Gary Robinson, Hira Sabuhi, Johann Schweig, Courtney Song, Jerome Soustra, Rachel Tan, Margarita Urquiza, Mauricio Vieto, Zhiqiang Wang, Christopher Werner, Sonny Meng Qi Xu, Soo Jung Yoo, Milena Zindovic
Photography: Karen Brummund, Mauricio Pezo, Irina Chernyakova, Jesica Bello
Project year: 2009
Construction Year: 2009
Surface: 30.000 m2
Budget: 3000 USD
This installation establishes an optical exercise extended into a landscape format. Field is a continuous and homogenous installation of 2800 red sacks filled with straw (21” wide x 32” high) that covered the entire Arts Quad of the Cornell University Campus, in Ithaca (NY). The sacks were distributed in a 10 feet by 10 feet regular grid that followed the natural slope of the ground surface.
Photo by Mauricio Pezo
Color dots arranged in a regular formation examine the formal properties of the agricultural fields in reference to the past history of the site. The project establishes a translation of the geometrical geography that is necessary for productive agricultural labors and, at the same time, it depicts the overlap between that original field morphology with a sort of physical impossibility of making an idealized, Cartesian and abstract pattern. Ultimately, this exercise reclaims the centrality of the Arts Quad’s openness with an inclusive and non-hierarchical spatial structure.
Photo by Karen Brummund
Photo by Mauricio Pezo
Photo by Mauricio Pezo
Plan
-
- Plan
-
- Photo by Jesica Bello
-
- Photo by Jesica Bello
-
- Photo by Karen Brummund
-
- Photo by Mauricio Pezo
-
- Photo by Mauricio Pezo
-
- Photo by Mauricio Pezo
-
- Photo by Mauricio Pezo
-
- Photo by Mauricio Pezo
-
- Photo by Mauricio Pezo
-
- Photo by Mauricio Pezo
-
- Photo by Karen Brummund
-
- Photo by Karen Brummund
-
- Photo by Karen Brummund
-
- Photo by Karen Brummund
Related articles:
32 comments »
Are we missing something? A red grid seems too simple for Cornell designers. Eisenman has been doing much more challenging work with the grid for 40 years, and most participants in his discourse push much further than Pezo, Ellrichshausen and Suh. Example: Diller + Scofidio made a grid in Columbia Circle out of traffic cones: superior to this in terms of levels of meaning and alluding to cultural hierarchies outside itself using materials “indigenous to the site.”
I think the sloppiness of the grid diminishes the impact of the work.
still – i like it!
616619478 my QQ thanks
they are my favorites! genius minimalism!
I thought minimalism is about perfection
I like the idea and the possibilities, but the impact is lost on a site that appears to be relatively flat. Redo it on some real topography and then we can discuss its merits.
What is this? I don’t get it. I kinda do… but I just don’t. Just more architectural theory folk trying to sound smart.
They should have worked harder and raked up the leaves that had fallen from the trees to fill the bags rather than use hay. Now we will just have more unnecessary land fill!
@ Simon and Isla, MY feelings exactly. Bagged leaves fallen from their trees-is more poetic than this. I thought we were over all this 1990’s irrelevant theory- too bad, because Cornell has always been ahead of the curve in Architectural education.
i though it was leaves in the bags… when i saw picture of
hay, i couldn’t see the point
i really like pve works, in architecture at least, but when they try to do their “conceptual”visual art kind of intervention perceptual thing, they really, i mean, really are not to good. This is like take from any taschen 25 aniversary book. In my opinion PVE should keep doing their good architecture works, and let the interventions to people like Michael van Valkendburgh, Hiroshi Nakao, Mary Miss, or mabye the most iconic ones, Richard Serra and Robert Smithson, let art to the artists and architecture to architects.
ARCHMONSTER agree with you toatally, crapy theory
The plan is the most convincing component, but the idea begins to be a bit dull in the explanation, and then completely falls flat in the execution, which in the end doesn’t even appear to be a grid.
Looks as if the longitudinal dimension got squished a bit.
Reminds me of drawings by Leon Ferrari but lacks any similar dimension.
the beauty comes from the scale of this project and the relationship of the red dots to the physical context… i like it!
am I the only here feeling forced to think of a military cemetary?
Yes– the body bag slump of those shapes suggests a cemetery about to sink into the Arts Quad. This also feels too simple a concept. I personally dislike this installation because it impacts the park so much as to prevent things like students’ free movement (playing a game of frisbee, lolling around on the grass in large groups and other such college-kid behavior). With installations, and even some other public art, it strikes me as rude to block or interrupt the intended use of parks opened for the artists’ expression. Cliche, but I think one reason people in NYC loved Gates was that it made such an impact, visually, but encouraged park visits, without impeding parks use. Making people rethink how they view a public space is one thing. Throwing a trip-line in their path is another thing.
Our industry could really ease up on the Advil-inducing afterthoughts and justifications: Reclaiming the centrality of the Arts Quad’s openness with an inclusive and non-hierarchical spatial structure? If it was missing, wouldn’t a flyer stapled to a post be more effective?. Whew.
Why can’t we be honest and simply say “A grid of red dots in this area could be quite lovely.” Now how do we do it? We fill red sacks with straw. Great. Wonderful to see and walk around. Thanks for playing. Have a nice day.
Yet another installation at Cornell that is conceptually interesting and astoundingly impractical for students, as Lora noted. Fifteen years ago I had an up-close view of another art display inflicted on the students in the same quad — giant black plywood walls constructed around each of the paths. Incredibly difficult to get around the quad, cold as hell wind tunnels, and a safety hazard at night.
I think the visual is interesting and I appreciate the reference to the quad’s history as farmland, but why do it in this (obstructionist and unsafe) manner in the most congested place on campus?
This is very sad, not only because of the poor execution and even more diluted intent/idea but because it all springs from the desire to make only one “cute” drawing…..all the project is brought to existance not because the arts quad is decentralized or because the grid is out inmortal and primordial regulating locking device but because they just wanted to make that one cute plan with the tiny red dots….a drawing without content….it doesnt even deserve to be called a diagram.
but cornell is the best…..yess
The size is unfortunately the only impressive angle I can find on that installation.
But I do value the effort.
Over-thought over-educated intellectual masturbation.
^ That. A rubbish project attempting to demonstrate bloated concepts that somehow required three people to develop. A sloppy application by students who’ll scratch their head over its value or purpose just like an entire college that cant use the quad as a result. And three grand wasted on materials in the process. Should have just stayed inside with a $5 bag of M&Ms for the same effect.
trite, contrived, inconvenient, eco-unfriendly, unoriginal and poorly-executed.
try again.
What the article unfortunately forgets to mention is that over the week or so that this intervention was up, the “cartesian” state as presented lasted maybe a few hours.
Everyone who walked through the quad (arch students included) began kicking them, moving them, and eventually placing them in ways that were actually quite interesting and changing day to day, which I thought was a process that was going to be documented (I guess not) as part of the project.
It was great to see all the things that random people will do to a cartesian field if given the freedom, whether it stems from a tendency toward chaos, randomness or “design”!
i see military cemetary
great work!!
Unfortunatelly all the comments are based on the short introductory text. that´s not the proposal but the experience and interaction with extrange elements in a field.
I get a similar experience every day in Cardiff, walking past the bags of rubbish left all over the pavements.
Links to this article »