TDPA 2018
The hypothetical site for the Tapestry Design Prize for Architects 2018 was Étienne-Louis Boullée mooted building that was inspiration for the Pharos Wing, MONA, Tasmania, Australia, designed by Fender Katsalidis Architects. Architects responded to an and eclectic brief written by MONA Founder David Walsh AO.
Brief:
“Boullée’s fondness for grandiose designs has caused him to be characterized as both a megalomaniac and a visionary.”
That’s from the Wikipedia article on Étienne-Louis Boullée. Those around me, my staff, friends and sycophants, call me a visionary to my face and a megalomaniac to each other. Megalomaniacs have, as their biological brief, a desire to do things that can’t be done. So in Pharos, we brought some masters of caprice together. I’d like to put them in a room together.
Until Nonda and his mates started talking about Boullée I’d never heard of him. We have now built a wing of Mona called Pharos, and parts of that wing are both a paean to, and in thrall of, Boullée’s grandiose Cenotaph for Isaac Newton.
Here’s how we ripped him off:
Étienne-Louis Boullée, Cenotaph for Newton
Image courtesy of the artist and MONA Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Photo: MONA/Jesse Hunniford
Elsewhere in Pharos is a thrashing machine of Jean Tinguely. Tinguely also harnessed geometry, but then let it loose. Both abstracted geometrical elements for whimsy. What would have happened if they collaborated on a design that, in true Boullée style, was unconstrained by the requirement that it be constructable?
– DAVID WALSH AO