Each year, an emerging architect or team is selected to design and realize a temporary outdoor structure in the MoMA PS1 courtyard that provides shade, seating, and water. After winning MoMA PS1‘s 2019 Young Architects Program this past March, “Hórama Rama” by Pedro & Juana is now open to the public.
Ana Paula Ruiz Galindo and Mecky Reuss of Mexico City-based studio Pedro & Juana designed the temporary installation as a 40-foot-high, 90-foot-wide cyclorama structure that immerses visitors into a jungle landscape. The project also serves as a temporary built environment for MoMA PS1’s outdoor music series, Warm Up.
The presence of this large circular structure reconfigures the courtyard into an immersive environment that visitors can move in and out of, contrasting with the cityscape immediately adjacent to the museum. Amplifying the experience are hammocks crafted in the south of Mexico along with a functioning waterfall. The exterior of the structure features protruding wood “bristles” that create a dynamic sense of movement.
“For the 20th anniversary of the Young Architects Program, each of the five finalists designed potential — of surface, of movement, of space, of structure — as narratives that both reveal and conceal,” says Sean Anderson, Associate Curator in MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design. “Pedro & Juana’s world-within-a-world, Hórama Rama, is a manifold of views in which to see and be seen, to find and lose oneself in a radically different environment. The installation constructs a collection of scenes into which visitors may escape, even if for a moment, whether in a hammock or by the waterfall.”
“Finding inspiration in historical panoramas, Pedro & Juana have designed a structure that will allow visitors to immerse themselves in a fantastical wilderness, a visual refuge from the city,” adds MoMA PS1 Chief Curator, Peter Eleey.“By juxtaposing two landscapes in transition — the jungle and the long island city skyline — they draw attention to the evolving conditions of our environment, both globally and locally, at a crucial moment.”