Portico

Shoah Memorial Competition, Bologna, Italy, 2015
in collaboration with MODO Studio

The atrocities of the Holocaust are unspeakable and unnamable: certainly there is no sign that architecture can employ to represent the Shoah. Instead, architecture can call into question the stability of things that we think we know: in particular the names that we give things.

Both a space and a thing, Portico is a series of constantly shifting name-abilities: the ground becomes seat-like, the ceiling becomes window-like, and both join to become column-like. This constant shifting plays with the perception of things and our discomfort in not being able to categorize the elements of our world into meaning-boxes. These elements not only interact with our eyes and minds, but are felt through changes in topography and materiality through the feet and hands and bodies as ground and handrails and benches shift under our touch.