„Pavilion:
An ornamental building lightly constructed, often used as a pleasure-house or summerhouse in a garden, or attached to a cricket or other sports ground; also a projecting subdivision of some larger building, usually square and often domed, forming an angle feature on the main facade or terminating the wings“[1].
A quite accurate formulation of the term ‚pavilion/pavillon’ itself, if we refer words like ‚lightly constructed’ or ‚usually square’ to one of Frank D. Israel works in early 90s: The Weisman Pavilion.
It rises somewhere in the famous hills of Los Angeles, as a rectangular solide above the greens of this broad expanse of area.
Created by Frank Israel in 1991, it houses a collection of expressionate Art.
With a kind of fortress-ish Charisma, one is willing to approach this building barely carefully.
It is paradoxally studded with lightweighted elements, in order to break through its mass. Elements like as „mitered glass corner“ and „movable walls“ or „weightless stairs“[2].
Units and parts that imply influences from Japan/the Pacific Rim. Israel created links between the west coast and its Pacific equivalent/companion[3]. So in both cases, lines between inside and outside or landscape and construction are blurred[4].
Even if we speak about a fluent sence of space, we distinguish a symmetry – noticeable especially on the facade. And even if its light-flooded with open rooms, we distinguish a privacy through the thickness of its massive, stuccoed and solid walls – which is related to the privacy of the art collection it hosts.
Derya Kulatu
[1] Fleming, John i. e.: Pavilion. In: The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture, hg. v. John Fleming, Hugh Honour, Nikolaus Pevsner, London 1966, S. 238.
[2] Steele, James: Los Angeles Architecture; Chapter VI – Architecture and Community: Divining a Sense of Place, o. O. 1993, S. 154.
[3] Steele 1993.
[4] Israel, Frank D.: Frank D. Israel. Buildings and Projects, o. O. 1993, S. 113.