Marquee
Event: Boston Center for the Arts Inside::Out Public Space Competition
Boston MA
Entry awarded Honorable Mention
“The Battle of Gettysburg,” Paul Dominique Phillippoteaux’s
original marquee event for Boston’s Cyclorama, was a topic
for intellectual operation in its reproduction and in its content.
Reproduction: three more copies toured in other cycloramas across
the nation in the late 19th century. One was reformulated, cut apart
and used to make tents on a Shoshone Native American Reservation.
Content: the events of a dynamic battle of separate interests collapsed
in a singular space.
Reproduction: like the tents, we thought of returning this original
“inside” in a modified and unwrapped form that acts
as a landscape marquee for the BCA Plaza. The surface can be entered
into at many points, a changing canvas of event space. Like the
theatrical marquee, the underside becomes a crystalline advertising
canopy for the BCA associated businesses and performances.
Content: this unwrapped landscape smoothly negotiates a variety
of fluid and spontaneous events related to both the South End and
the BCA. This reintroduces the privileged position of horizon in
the original installation, moving visitors between ground and 10’-0”
It allows for accessible entry to the cyclorama level and also provides
zoned spaces for the cafes and galleries at ground level.
The resulting and repeating saddle shape is inherently strong while
remaining thin. A glass mosaic secured between stainless steel mesh
panels will allow spaces for gathering, shading and diffuse light.
|
 |
