On April 9, Steven Holl Architects will open the installation INVERSION, presented as part of INTERNI’s Hybrid Architecture exhibition event, organized on occasion of the FuoriSalone 2013, during Design Week in Milan.
INVERSION, shown in the Cortile 700 of the Università degli Studi di Milano, features six void-cut limestone blocks, which frame a sheet of water. The limestone is 21 million year old stone from a quarry in Lecce, Italy.
The process, beginning with a 5”x7” watercolor sketch in New York City, which is transformed into a 3D file and then sent to Lecce, required no working drawings.
Measuring 1.2 meters tall and weighing 2500 lbs, each of the six stone blocks is digitally cut with a five-axis CNC mill by the Lecce stone fabricator Pimar. The forms are carved rectangular stone blocks, and the direct reversal as solids.
In the evening they glow like stone lanterns powered with flexible high-powered LED strip tubes provided by iGuzzini lighting company. The stones hover and reflect in a sheet of water with a misting system created by Teuco Guzzini.
Beginning in Lecce and trucked to Milan for the exhibition, the heavy stones will be flown air freight to Princeton, NJ after the show, to be installed in the permanent configuration of the new Performing Arts Center by Steven Holl Architects.
As part of the exhibition events, Steven Holl will lecture in the Aula Magna of the Università degli Studi di Milano on April 9 at 10am.