Amazing Sun: Exploring the Sun

invited competition 2012

status:
Invited Competition – finalist

year:
2012

place:
Rome, Italy

client:
MAXXI, Young Architects Program (YAP)

with:

area:

description:
Our project is inspired by the science fiction literary magazine Amazing Stories, created by Hugo Gernsback in 1926. The peculiarity of this publication – in which have written authors like Isaac Asimov, Howard Fast and Ursula K. Le Guin – was to combine entertainment and research. It was indeed Gernsback belief that science fiction could help its readers to be open to the Future, to be more interested in research and scientific discoveries. In line with this idea, our project aims to encourage its users by dipping them into a sunny imaginative landscape, but at the same time focuses on environmental issues, deepening the relationship between Man and Nature.

The installation that we are proposing is inspired by a 1635 engrave of the Sun by Christoph Scheiner, a german jesuit and mathematician. We consider the celestial body as the main character of our project. A luminous and warm star which makes golden the surrounding landscape, including human beings. The sun, from which radiate different paths for shape and consistency, is defined by a large platform of cocciopesto, enriched with different finishes. These pathways then lead the viewer/Argonaut in a large gold field, that’s the result of heat and sunlight. Man then is finally able to walk on the Sun. During the exploration of this star, he can rediscover the pleasure of being surrounded by nature, can find relief from the pools of water or geysers, can relax watching at the sky and at the great telescope of the MAXXI. There will also be the opportunity for visitors to learn to fly, using replicas of airplanes and airships that also act as shield for the Sun. Moreover, special attention is paid to the auditory aspect: the visitor will create a soundtrack by walking or using the various structures. Thus intensifying the relationship between Man and Nature.

YellowOffice, corso Indipendenza 14, 20129 Milano