Hórama Rama by Pedro & Juana (Ana Paula Ruiz Galindo & Mecky Reuss), winner of The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1’s 20th annual Young Architects Program, is on view at MoMA PS1 from June 28 through September 2, 2019. This year’s architectural installation is an immersive junglescape set within a 40-foot-high, 90-foot-wide cyclorama structure. Selected from among five finalists, Hórama Rama serves as a temporary built environment for MoMA PS1’s pioneering outdoor music series, Warm Up.
For 20 years, the Young Architects Program at The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA
PS1 has offered emerging architectural talent the opportunity to design and present
innovative projects, challenging each year’s winners to develop creative designs for a
temporary and sustainable outdoor installation that provides shade, seating, and
water. The architects must also work within environmentally sensitive guidelines.
Hórama Rama is a large-scale cyclorama featuring a panoramic image of the jungle on
scaffolding that sits atop the courtyard of MoMA PS1 and catapults visitors into a wild, foreign territory. The nearly 40-foot-tall, 90-foot-wide structure hovers over the courtyard space, reframing the horizon and positioning visitors in an urban jungle. 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, the installation features 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,” said 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,” MoMA PS1 Chief Curator Peter Eleey added.” “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.”
The other finalists for this year’s MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program were Low
Design Office (DK Osseo-Asare and Ryan Bollom), Oana Stănescu & Akane Moriyama,
Matter Design (Brandon Clifford, Johanna Lobdell, and Wes McGee), and TO (Jose G.
Amozurrutia and Carlos Facio). An exhibition featuring the finalists’ proposals as well
as past Young Architects Program winners on the occasion of the 20th anniversary
will be on view at MoMA PS1 from June 28 through September 2, organized by Sean
Anderson, Associate Curator, with Arièle Dionne-Krosnick, Curatorial Assistant,
Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art.
Bloomberg Philanthropies has enabled the Young Architects Program at MoMA PS1
and The Museum of Modern Art to thrive since 2007.
More info and project credits at Young Architects Program 2019 page.
