Spires and Strange Iconicity

Vilnius is a city of spires. This project resonates with its urban silhouette while still registering as a discrete object, seemingly landed on the city, or maybe cored out from it. A collection of vertical spires figure the roofline of a low, circular disc that hovers just above the tip of Tauras Hill. The project resists the bulky massing typical of the western concert hall type, presenting instead a vision of slenderness and multiplicity often associated with other civic or religious buildings. Breaking expectation of type disrupts the ability of the audience to consume it, creating an alluring project that is both somehow familiar and inaccessible.

Spare Parts of the City

A familiar set of urban forms is miniaturized and re-organized, like the recognizable yet altered elements in a souvenir snowglobe. The project does not literally mimic the spires or buildings of Vilnius, but instead initiates a conversation with them. Sets of small tower figures are used like the spare parts of a model kit, or the pieces of a game. Parts can be copied, differentially scaled, and rotated, or even thrown out, but they cannot be deformed or hybridized. Like a snow globe, this miniature toy city has the benefit of being able to include things of different times, places, and scales, all laid out inside a circular boundary.