Conversation Pieces
Across the vast space of the new Globe and Mail Centre’s elegant lobby, two unoccupied chairs face each other; a record of a conversation concluded. As visitors walk down the length of the lobby, the actual difference in scale and location between the chairs is revealed: one is small, the other enormous. While this is metaphor for our differences from one another, it is also a poignant reminder that the way in which we inhabit architectural space inherently changes our experience of it. The change of scale also forces a confrontation between art, form, and function; between people and buildings, and public and private space. We are forcing a confrontation of the similarity between points of view and values, rather than the differences between them.
CLIENT:
DesignTO; King East Design District
SIZE:
2 chairs: one 3ft high; one 12ft high
LOCATION:
Toronto, Ontario
SECTOR:
Public Art Installation
SCOPE:
Concept, design & fabrication
DATE:
Completed 2019
IMAGE CREDITS:
Ben Rahn / A-Frame 2019
Project Details
Project Images
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail has been one of Canada’s prominent voices for generations, front and centre in the battle to keep the chasm of polarizing politics from becoming uncrossable. This is the conversation we are all engaged in: trying to find common ground between our social, political, economic, spatial and geographic differences. Will we abandon it, or will we stay in the conversation?
We’ve set ourselves the task of designing to bridge the gap; to be rational, buildable and pleasing at both a small and a large scale. Furniture is a medium of negotiation – it provides the connecting tissue between the scale and needs of people, and those of buildings. We need furniture to allow a building to meet our needs; it is the intermediary, the point of contact, and the receptacle for our bodies and ourselves.
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