Álvaro Siza and Carlos Castanheira Architects have built a monolithic concrete art pavilion that will be used to display sculptures by Siza in an art park in South Korea.
The pavilion was informed by another Siza building, a gallery that was designed to display two Pablo Piccasso pieces, Guernica and Pregnant Woman, for the 1992 Madrid European Capital of Culture but was never built.
Above: the building is part-sunken into the ground. Top image: the pavilion has a forked shape
"This project started with a very uncommon demand from the client and the art director of the park at the time," studio founder Carlos Castanheira, who has long collaborated with Siza, told Dezeen. "They liked very much one project made for Madrid European Capital of Culture 1992 that wasn?t built." "It isn?t usual for us to 'repeat' a project in other places because we believe that each building belongs to a certain place or site," he added.
"But I went to visit the site and met the client and liked both and so we accepted the challenge knowing that it wouldn?t be exactly the same project because the site was different and the program also."
It was constructed using concrete
The 1,370-square-metre Saya Park Art Pavilion is roughly four times smaller than the building it references. It is located in Changpyeong-Ri in the Gyeongsang Province of South Korea, atop one of the area's tallest hills.
The pavilion takes shape as a linear, forked structure that is part-...