Izabela Sykta, Dariusz Sykta and Kamil Dabek received second place in an international competition organized by Switch Comeptitions. The task was to design a reading pavilion in New York's Central Park.
The online platform Switch Competitions organizes idea-based competitions aimed at architects, designers and visual artists. Their premise is often to reformulate icons of architecture and landscape architecture. The theme of the 2019 Central Park Book Studio New York Competition was the concept for a reading pavilion in Manhattan's Sheep Meadow. Participants were faced with a rather difficult task. They were to create a new library formula in the iconic park designed in the 19th century by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux . The facility was to promote the culture of reading in modern society. The competition was met with great interest from designers, two hundred and twelve works were submitted from all over the world.
© Izabela Sykta, Dariusz Sykta, Kamil Dąbek
idea Rock & Read Studio
The jury of the competition appreciated the Polish proposal entitled Rock & Read Studio, awarding it second place. As the authors say about the idea of the project:
"In the beginning was the Word... We create Rock & Read Studio not in a building, but in a cave. Central Park is reserved for nature - air, earth, rocks, plants and animals (as well as people). We are exploring the wildness of Manhattan [...] We are mining the genius loci - delving into the earth to get to the rocks, the core and the origins of Mannahatta. Rock & Read Studio is topography. We write, we draw, we model the topos. We seek a new urban sublimity in nature. The cave is the archetypal refuge. Rock & Read Studio - a hollowed out rock Manhattan schist reading cave is a refuge in the urban jungle of Manhattan."
The building refers in form to the elements: water, earth and air
© Izabela Sykta, Dariusz Sykta, Kamil Dąbek
Manhattan's genesis
The maxim "In the beginning was the Word" set the authors' direction of exploration. The inspiration for the layout of the Sheep Meadow pavilion came from the Milky Way galaxy, considered the beginning of the world and discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei, a year after Hudson reached Manhattan. "The most beautiful land that man has ever stepped on," "Island of many hills," "Mannahatta"-that's what the Lenape Indians originally called it. Rock & Read Studio is a connector going back to the genesis of Manhattan and following its story. It explores the potential of nature's wildness in Manhattan's culturally dominated space.
The interior features a reading room, café and multimedia space
© Izabela Sykta, Dariusz Sykta, Kamil Dąbek
