Parallax Gap
INSTALLATION ARCHITECTURE
PARALLAX GAP
Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
On view: July 1, 2017 – February 11, 2018
Parallax Gap transforms the Renwick Gallery’s Bettie Rubenstein Grand Salon into a visual puzzle. This immersive, site-specific installation explores examples of interplay between craft and architecture through a ceiling-suspended structure running the length of the Renwick’s iconic gallery. The installation embraces both Eastern and Western concepts of perspective through trompe l’oeil effects and multiple vanishing points to create a sense of soaring architectural volume.
Drawings of ceilings of nine different iconic American buildings are fabricated using a collection of skewed vantage points. Laid near or atop one another, they create layers of both recognizable and abstracted architectural space that change as viewers move underneath. These perspectival illusions operate through the concept of parallax, or how the distance or depth of objects appears to vary when viewed from different lines of sight. Parallax Gap is the Renwick’s first foray into commissioning examples of large-scale craft in architecture.
Parallax Gap was designed by FreelandBuck, an architectural design practice based in New York and Los Angeles.
As coordinating curator for Parallax Gap at the Renwick Gallery, Helen Bechtel oversaw the installation’s conception and realization, collaborating with FreelandBuck and Smithsonian teams to translate complex spatial drawings into a suspended, multidimensional form that reimagined the gallery’s relationship to space and perspective. Bechtel guided the project from proposal through fabrication and installation, aligning artistic vision, technical innovation, and institutional goals to produce one of the Renwick’s most acclaimed contemporary commissions, supplemented by a 10-page written guide and public talks.
About the Artist
FreelandBuck is a Los Angeles and New York City-based architectural office founded and led by Brennan Buck and David Freeland. Established in 2010, the office makes buildings, spaces, and objects that engage the public through layers of meaning, illusion and visual effect. With each project, FreelandBuck aims to create distinct spaces that contribute to a more stimulating, aesthetically engaging, and challenging world. The firm’s architecture and public art work is noteable for its visual richness, intricate spatial sequences, cultural reference and use of drawing, as both design method and autonomous form of work. FreelandBuck is a winner of the Architectural League of New York’s Emerging Voices Prize in 2019.
Photo by Kevin Kunstadt
Photo by Rae Giard
Architectural Drawing by FreelandBuck
Photo belongs to the Smithsonian American Art Museum