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Look at the process behind Olafur Eliasson's colorful glass canopy in California Wine Country

2022-08-04T12:00:00-04:00

Work has been completed on the Vertical Panorama Pavilion in Sonoma, California. Designed by Studio Other Spaces, a Berlin studio founded by artist Olafur Eliasson and architect Sebastian Behmann, the pavilion will be used as a space for wine tasting by The Donum Estate, one of California’s leading Pinot Noir producers.

Image © The Donum Estate and Studio Other Spaces

The scheme was conceived through a deep reflection on the site’s natural elements, taking what the designers call a “vertical slice” through the site. Such elements include the crunching sound of walking on a gravel path, the fragrances of surrounding soil and flora, the sound of wind, grass, and insects, and the formations of clouds and fog.

Image © The Donum Estate and Studio Other Spaces

The pavilion’s defining architectural feature is its conical canopy with a northern-oriented oculus, clad with 832 colored laminated glas...

Calatrava's WTC Oculus continues to leak

2019-09-26T14:07:00-04:00

Few things are as embarrassing for an architect than having a building you’ve designed spring a leak.

Unfortunately for Santiago Calatrava, that is exactly what's happened at the World Trade Center Oculus, a $3.9 billion transit hub built to memorialize the September 11th terrorist attacks. The transit center and subterranean mall contained within the hub are topped by a sculptural pavilion that is itself capped by a 355-foot skylight. The skylight, made up of a dozen glass panels that are designed to open mechanically every year to mark each anniversary of the attacks, has been leaking since at least 2017.

In 2018, according to The Wall Street Journal, a rubber seal that runs along the length of the roof ruptured as the skylight was opened for the annual remembrance ceremonies. Officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have spent over $50,000 since attempting to repair the tear, and plan on spending at least $200,000 more to seal the entire skylight with a waterp...

Skylight at Calatrava's WTC Oculus reportedly leaking

2019-05-13T13:29:00-04:00

The skylight that crowns the spiky, $3.9 billion World Trade Center Oculus has sprung a leak. A rubber seal that runs along the spine of the retractable skyline is believed to have ripped during its opening and closing on the 2018 anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, The Wall Street Journal reports.

"Some $30,000 by The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was spent this winter to repair the tear using black strips of Flex Tape, but the skylight at the massive transportation hub and shopping mall leaked again on May 5," Curbed summarizes the WSJ's account.

The Santiago Calatrava-designed—and not entirely uncontroversial—Oculus opened to the public on March 3, 2016 and has had repeated leaking issues during construction.

Skylight of Santiago Calatrava's WTC Oculus to reopen for 9/11 anniversary

2018-09-10T17:30:00-04:00

The opening allows for the “Way of Light” to pass through the main hub of the transit hall at 10:28 a.m.—the moment that the North Tower of the WTC collapsed on September 11, 2001. The path along which the light travels inside the hall symbolizes “the light that continues to shine through after the darkness of the tragedy,” says a spokesperson for the Oculus.

The video "Oculus" surveys the history, context, and execution of Calatrava's transit hub

2017-02-07T18:24:00-05:00

How does Santiago Calatrava's Oculus encapsulate the complex history and significance of its site? In this brief video from filmmaker Jeff Durkin, Calatrava's elaborate transit hub canopy is sited in its aesthetic and social contexts via a series of carefully selected voice-over news clips and aesthetic commentary. Here, the horror of 9/11, the beauty of human perception, and sweeping shots of the architecture itself are layered to create this filmmaker's interpretation of what the Oculus is. Watch it here:

"It looks like a dove. Or a carcass": Christopher Hawthorne on Calatrava's Transportation Hub

2016-03-23T13:25:00-04:00

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey...has been so chastened by the cost overruns and construction delays that it declined to hold even a modest ribbon-cutting. When a bureaucracy turns down a major opportunity to pat itself on the back, you know things have turned sour. Turned acid, really. Still, everyone seems to agree that the main hall, which stretches beneath a glass and white-steel roof and which Calatrava calls the Oculus, is beautiful. But I didn't find it beautiful...

"...at least not in the way that Calatrava's finest work, fluid and precise, often is. I found it structurally overwrought and emotionally underwhelming, straining for higher meaning, eager to wring some last drops of mournful power from a site that is already crammed with official, semi-official and indirect memorials."

For related coverage of Santiago Calatrava's $4B "elaborate headstone in the crowded ground zero graveyard," as Hawthorne calls it, check out these links: