LOCATION: BROOKLYN, NY
TYPE: CULTURAL
STATUS: 2018
CLIENT: BROOKLYN CHILDREN’S MUSEUM
TEAM: AMANDA SCHACHTER, ALEXANDER LEVI, DUGAN LUNDAY, CARA WELCH, WERONIKA KOSIOR, DIANA DROGARIS, CLAIRE NATIRBOV, BROOKLYN CHILDREN’S MUSEUM STAFF & INTERNS
FABRICATORS: NYCITY SLAB
SUPPORT: BROOKLYN CHILDREN’S MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS TEAM
ColorLab transforms a 1,700 square-foot corner of the museum’s second floor, once housing a library, into a hands-on art-making workshop with reading area and curated exhibition. Embodying the pedagogy of Josef and Anni Albers, we set out to define space and program within the restraints of a shoestring budget through allegories of perception. Two art-making areas radiate from a central reading corner. An enfolding lily-pad, the reading corner gathers seats beneath a cluster of giant barnacles floating overhead— an amplification of Josef Albers’s Homage to the Square, woven into a dense three-dimensional tapestry of colored fishing line.
Colorwalls of cantilevered cubbies and shelving bracket the lab at twin ends, contemplating interactions of color that draw each eye out to distinct horizons from the reading corner. The Wonderwall, transformed from the room’s original open shelving, curates a heightened sensory experience of the Museum’s art objects. While in the act of making art in the ColorLab, children see for themselves how color makes space. At living scale, allegories of perception become experience.
