COLUMBUS, Ind. — To put it in modern vernacular, Exhibit Columbus organizers would like nothing better than its coming fourth architectural exhibition, “Public By Design,” opening Aug. 25-26, to be lit.
And designer Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder of the New York-based firm Practice for Architecture and Urbanism, would like to be among participants making that happen.
Literally.
His firm’s Miller Prize creation, “InterOculus,” is a canopy designed to light up over the intersection of Fourth and Washington streets downtown. It also is expected to feature a variety of projections and more.
Late Tuesday, after the installation’s structural beams were put in place by a crane parked in the street, he spoke with cautious optimism about what soon will be his firm’s first official, major completed project — a source of pride and joy to the extent that he said both he and his wife, Maria Alataris, will literally be dancing in the street with attendees at the 7 p.m. Aug. 26 free outdoor party called “Rock the Block” with live music.
“Fingers crossed,” Chakrabarti said of his creation’s bells and whistles. “Keep in mind that this is construction done in a vary rapid-fire manner. So I’m not making any 100 percent promises until we’re all there dancing underneath it.”
The exhibition, which runs through Nov. 26 and celebrates and spins off of the city’s lengthy Modernist, global legacy, will feature 13 total outdoor installations located near existing, significant local sites by noted structural or landscape architects. The four Miller Prize winners form the centerpiece of the event that, since its inception in 2017, has triggered international media attention.
University Design Research Fellow installations, a communication designer’s effort, and work from a local High School Design Team round out the creations.
At Mill Race Park, the frame of a sprawling, creative, bamboo skeleton structure called “Echoes of the Hill,” one of the Miller Prize installations, was completed late Tuesday. Vinc Math of New York was overseeing the construction that he described as slightly ahead of schedule.
The piece’s painted-red ribbing is planned to be finished within days.
“It’s mimmicking the park’s hill (that it faces),” Math said. “The shape and the width of the installation is the same as the hill. So the idea is that we have these two hills, in essence, talking to each other.”
The work, from New York’s Studio Zewde, faces the hill of the park’s amphitheater.
At the Bartholomew County Public Library Plaza before dusk on Tuesday, workers on behalf of Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO of Mexico City, Mexico, were painting bright blue finishing touches on a 24-foot-high, whimsical, bookshelf-like backdrop for the Miller Prize installation known as “Designed By the Public.”
Brose Partington, whose studio is the installation’s fabricator, mentioned that the physical construction began on-site Sunday morning and is progressing steadily.
“We are maybe a little ahead of schedule,” Partington said, “even though yesterday’s rain held us back a little.”
