Student Work
Title
Rye Lane Gallery Market
Project Description
Sited on the chaotic streetscape of Rye Lane in Peckham, London, the program is a place of commercial and cultural exchange: a curious mash-up of an art gallery wrapped around a market place. What happens when the walls of a typical white box museum become transparent? The juxtaposition between these two seemingly opposing environments begin to draw parallels between the art and the merchandise, as well as introduce reversals in how objects are typically displayed.
The architecture is generated by a relentless column grid (B) superimposed onto the grid (A) produced by the irregular shape of the site. At the center is a market place surrounding a garden occupying Grid A with the boundaries of the booths delineated by the texture on the ground.
At the corners of the market place are four pavilions, where the program between market place and art gallery on the outer perimeter are blurred - can I really buy seafood in the Lobster Pavilion? Is the fishing net a functional tool or a work of art?
These pavilions and the art gallery occupy Grid B, where spaces are defined by textures on the glass walls. As one walks through linear gallery, layer upon layer of textures at times reveal and at times obscure the spaces, objects, and people in the adjacent rooms. Thus market and gallery seep into one another, creating new and interesting forms of commercial and cultural exchange.