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reOrder by Situ Studio Fills the Brooklyn Museum with Floating Fabric

<a href='http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/reorder/'>reOrder: An Architectural Environment by Situ Studio</a> opened in March at the <a href='http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/'>Brooklyn Museum</a>. This architectural installation re-imagines the Great Hall of the museum by clothing the space’s columns with fabric canopies shaped by steel tubing and plywood ribs. The exhibition will be on display through January 15. Image courtesy of Keith Sirchio.

The mushroom-like fabric shapes are lit from within, giving the entire installation a delicate, ethereal glow. Fabric masses balloon out as their hidden structural columns reach to the ceiling, and a sense of free-floating suspension hangs in the room. Image courtesy of Keith Sirchio.

Though its designers used contemporary computer modeling methods to create the installation, the final aesthetic result is handcrafted and classical, aided in part by the 19th century building (designed by Beaux Arts masters McKim, Mead, and White) that houses it. The Great Hall of the museum was recently renovated by New York’s Ennead Architects. Image courtesy of Keith Sirchio.

Benches are included at the base of some of the camouflaged columns, offering places for museum visitors to meet and relax. Image courtesy of Keith Sirchio.

The conceptual background of the installation is similarly set in the 19th century. Formally, the project draws inspiration from bustle hoop skirts, shaped in the same way that reOrder is. By taking these shapes, canting them, making them asymmetrical, and increasing their size, the designers are able to create an otherworldly presence that also offers soft, feminine contours. Image courtesy of Situ Studio.

The installation is imagined as a frame for public events and performances. Image courtesy of Situ Studio.

A <a href='http://vimeo.com/20523628'>fly-though</a> video taken during reOrder’s construction shows multitudes of people swarming over reams of delicately organized fabric; fastened, arraigned, and pressed just so--much like a Victorian lady-in-waiting might have helped her noblewoman get ready for an exclusive social engagement. The emphasis on handcrafted detail is obvious, but by physically anchoring the project to the infrastructure of the room (the columns), the design avoids equating architecture with anything as superficial as fashion too bluntly. Image courtesy of Situ Studio.

Designed by <a href='http://www.situstudio.com/'>Situ Studio</a>, a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary design firm, reOrder is a project that uses diverse materials (wood, steel, fabric) to create the illusion of a uniform, unified whole. This sense of material possibilities is communicated by another <a href='http://vimeo.com/21209966'>video documenting the fabrication of the installation</a>. Image courtesy of Situ Studio.

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