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Architects: Serban Ionescu Studio
- Area: 144 m²
- Year: 2020
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Photographs:Sara Fox
Text description provided by the architects. In the middle of a studio visit, a collector suddenly pointed to one of my small - fits in your hand- paper models and asked “What is this?”. I excitedly started rhyming “It’s...It’s Chapel for an apple! You know? It can be 20 feet tall on a hill and fully made of steel!”. Fast forward 3 months and we were in Hudson NY installing Chapel For An Apple’s 5,000 pounds of steel with a crane. That initial paper model was, in the spirit of my instinctual impulse drawings, an experiment in shapes, colors and volume.
It had no function or scale but I stayed true to a lot of it in the final realization. I wanted to respect that initial impulse. With the amazing assistance of Shape Studio in Red Hook, Brooklyn, we were able to fabricate it. They produced a beautiful color coordinated construction drawing set and everyone was excited to see this 20 feet tall folly erected in the middle of a field. I studied Architecture at Pratt Institute (Class of 2007) but I quickly redirected my interest after entering the field as I wanted to work more spontaneously.
So I turned to painting and sculpture that offered a more immediate process. My architectural background stayed dormant until a few years ago when I started intersecting my work with design and functional art. Slowly, architecture started to sneak back into my studio practice with methods such as model making, fabrication and red lining drawings of sculptures etc... That cold november night when Chapel For An Apple was erected, I realized that architecture was back at the core of my work. It felt so liberating.
I had carved my own way back to it outside of the strict regime of the industry. To see the crane move the pieces and the bolts connecting them felt magical. I want to continue this spirit and scale in my work and one day a bathroom or a kitchen will fit inside one of these creatures. Today Chapel For An Apple, sits alone in a large field. I wanted it to stand out from nature, like something alien.
An Unidentified Land Object, peeking out through the leaves of the trees or reflected in the pond. Upon entering, you are transported, you forget where you are. Like the chapel idea, the space has its own energy and changes your experience of the surroundings. There's a seat to contemplate the day. Water and light are welcome through carved openings. A window frames the pond. You can climb the ladder for a glimpse at a different view. And when you put your face on the face cut out, the whole structure becomes your mask.
As you pass through one silhouetted opening to the other I wanted the piece to activate this passage as a metamorphosis of some kind. Chapel For An Apple is about my journey reconnecting my art to my architectural past. It’s an experiment in that return, connection and future. A sculpture to enter nature and contemplate it. A folly to pass through time. An unidentified land object to experience transformation.
