Diller + Scofidio
Eyebeam
Museum of Art and Technology
New York , NY

The Eyebeam, museum of art and technology, is a facility that will be dedicated to exploring the connections between science and art, through the use of new technologies. Its programming consists of an exhibition space, artist-in-residence studios, an education center with multi-media classrooms, a state-of-the art new media theater, a digital archive, a restaurant, and a bookstore.

There is a simple and clear spatial logic to this building conception. It is based on simple premise of a pliable ribbon that locates production (atelier) to one side and presentation (museum/theatre) to the other. At every change of level, ribbon flips and from floor plane becomes a wall, turns into the ceiling, and that again into wall, etc. With each change of direction, the ribbon enfolds a production space or a presentation space, alternately.

Moreover, the ribbon is a two-ply, where sandwiched space between layers contains all of the building’s technical “nervous system”.

It is interesting how, through this interweaving, two diverse populations are brought together, building residents and building visitors. Their paths are for most of the cases separated but often parallel, and visible to one another through transparent dividers. At some instances, those paths cross and sometime even merge, sharing the program at those instances.

This puts each person on the either side of the screen in a position of viewer and one being viewed, wondering which is the spectacle?

Here, as in Diller + Scofidio’s ICA project, the notion of circulation and interface, creation of dynamic spaces and building’s dynamic presence in the city, are some of the aspects that I am interested in testing in my own project.