Kenny Tsui, Unit 20 2007
Voided Veilism. Confessional altarpiece in The Pilgrimage Hotel, Rome
The project investigates the mysteriousness of Voids (absent spatial fragments) veiled by a sacred organizational system based on the Holy foliage. Sited in The Basilica of St? Clemente, an unused church in Rome and an archaeological site of mystic edifices, evidence suggests a blissful mosaic depiction of the Bible myth, The Holy Tree of Life, that once sanctified the underground spaces. The symbolical foliage has been interpreted as a ?veil?, a divine spark that generated a projective construction system, which would intuitively guide the pilgrims to finding the concealed confessional altars and communal spaces. The pre-establishment of the veil?s projective properties has been studied through a series of RP (Rapid-prototype) models, of which its transparent casting of geometries simulates the partial or universal concealment of a corporeal virtuosity. The illusion of the void is hence created by the superfluity of excessive veils, configured by layers of interstitial light screens. The proposed Pilgrimage hotel reinvigorates the original basilicas by acting as a vertical intervention into the layers, of which the veils intertwine the old and the new voids for confessional activities. The model of the main void space represents the highest level of Voided Veilism, the most exuberant moment of the system. The black RP represents the mysterious field of the sacred veils, joining the edges of the transparent RP which represents the partial veil of the confessional void- the reconstructed altar of The Tree of Life. The experience of the void space in the model is created by the effect of the large mirror to simulate the virtual corporeality of the void.
