Wormholes through the Curtain Wall

Rice Gallery and the Rice School of Architecture recently collaborated to present the design workshop Wormholes through the Curtain Wall, which was held at Rice Gallery 16-18 June 2010. Thirteen generous donors made possible a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for eight architecture students to participate in the workshop led by 2010 Rome Prize winner and Critic in the Yale School of Art
Sarah Oppenheimer.

Participating students were undergraduates Patricia Bacalao, Sid Richardson ‘11, and Peter Stone, Wiess ‘12; graduate students Edward Baer, Christopher Ball, Jason Pierce, and Rebecca Sibley, and recent alums Alice Chai and Curt Gambetta.

Sarah Oppenheimer is known for her aesthetically sleek and perceptually startling installations that alter existing gallery and museum spaces to reveal seemingly impossible views. For her upcoming installation at Rice Gallery, D-17, Oppenheimer will create a hollow, needle-like form that will span nearly 60 feet, dramatically bisecting the gallery space as it rises from the floor and pierces the building exterior.

The design workshop was held in preparation for Oppenheimer’s monumental installation to study how light affects the Rice Gallery space. Throughout the course of the three-day workshop, Oppenheimer worked with the students in an intensive study of glass as both window and mirror. Using light meters, digital cameras, and a fabricated mock-up of the Rice Gallery space, they analyzed how different light conditions affected the reflectivity of the gallery’s glass “curtain wall.” The findings from the workshop will help influence the final form for Oppenheimer’s installation, and they will be documented and published in the exhibition catalogue.