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Courtyard with Curves: MoMA, P.S.1 Pick Xefirotarch for Annual Installation

The undulating project, called “Sur,” will also serve as the backdrop for Warm Up, P.S.1’s summer concert series.

Meaghan O'Neill -- Interior Design, 4/19/2005 12:00:00 AM

For the past six years, the Modern Museum of Art and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center have signaled the impending summer season by naming the winner of their Young Architects Program. Each year, the contest invites emerging architects to submit proposals for the transformation of the courtyard of P.S.1, a MoMA affiliate in Long Island City, New York .

This year, five finalists were selected from 17 submissions, each functioning under an assumed budget of $60,000. The winning entry, called “Sur,” designed by Xefirotarch, a Los Angeles-based firm specializing in architecture, product design, and digital motion, will be realized this summer.

A playful, elegant design, “Sur” will undulate and sprawl through the courtyard with a red and white cast-fiberglass and rubber base, and a corresponding freestanding aluminum armature covered with latex and polyurethane-sprayed spandex. Scattered between these sinuous surfaces, benches will be situated for repose. A silvery canopy overhead, concealing artificial lighting, will create a dappled, breezy effect.

“‘Sur’ is futuristic and organic, sophisticated and exhilarating” says Alanna Heiss, executive director of P.S.1. “Visitors will feel as if they’ve landed on another planet for the afternoon.” As in the past, the project will serve as a venue for Warm Up, the music series held each summer at P.S.1.

Hernan Diaz Alonso, principal and founder of award-winning Xefirotarch, faculty member at SCI-Arch, and a visiting professor at Columbia University’s GSAPP program, describes “Sur” as having “the flair of a circus and the ambience of a playground.”

The selection process was initiated by a group of architects, curators, academics, and editors. Five finalists presented projects to a panel that included Terence Riley, the Philip Johnson chief curator of the Department of Architecture and Design at MoMA; Glenn Lowry, director of MoMA; Klaus Biesenbach, chief curator of P.S.1, and curator of the Department of Film and Media at MoMA; Antoine Guerrero, director of exhibitions at P.S.1; and Heiss.

The four other finalists include Aranda/Lasch and Graftwork, both of New York; Forsythe + MacAllen Design of Vancouver; and WW of Boston.

“Sur,” to be unveiled June 16, will remain installed through September 2005. Project renderings of all five finalists will be presented at the Museum of Modern Art’s Louise Reinhardt Smith Gallery in New York from June 22 through August 22.

P.S.1 is located at 22-25 Jackson Avenue in Long Island City and is open 12 p.m.-6 p.m. Thursday-Monday.