The MoMA Young Architects Program commission ‘Hórama Rama’ by Pedro & Juana has opened today. The immersive ‘junglescape’ within a 40ft high cyclorama structure will be the site of Moma’s Summer Music series, at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City.
Mexico City-based architects Ana Paula Ruiz Galindo and Mecky Reuss, founders of Pedro & Juana, designed the installation to transport visitors to a wild place. The hovering scaffold structure covered in wooden bristles features a panoramic image of the jungle inside, while hammocks crafted in the south of Mexico and a flowing waterfall both further add to the immersive experience.
The brief for the project was to create an environmentally sustainable outdoor installation for the MoMA PS1 courtyard that provides shade, seating and water. Sean Anderson, associate curator, MoMA Department of architecture and design, was looking for attention to surface, movement and narrative in the winning entry: ‘Pedro & Juana’s world-within-a-world, Hórama Rama, is a manifold of views in which to see and be seen, to find and lose oneself in a radically different environment,’ he says.
Meanwhile Peter Eleey, chief curator, MoMA PS1, describes the installation as ‘a fantastical wilderness, a visual refuge from the city’: ‘By juxtaposing two landscapes in transition—the jungle and the Long Island City skyline—they draw attention to the evolving conditions of our environment, both globally and locally, at a crucial moment.’
The Young Architects Program is in its 20th year and has become known for producing experimental temporary environments, and picking young architects who are doing innovative and exciting work. An exhibition featuring the designs of the other finalists – Low Design Office, Oana Stănescu and Akane Moriyama, Matter Design, and TO – as well as past winners will be on view alongside the installation. §
