Studio Sean Canty has created a large-scale installation based on building two sheds together to highlight the history and values of Black Vernacular architecture.
The installation, called Edgar’s Shed, located in Giardini, is on display.
As part of Force Majeure in the central pavilion that forms one of six shows at the Venice Architecture Biennale.
Installed to highlight black vernacular,
Edgar’s Shed is made up of two sheds built by Sean Canty’s grandfather Edgar in Elliott, Southern California.
Describing his project, Sean Canty said:
“I call it Bubba. One shed is a house of joy, belonging and strife, and the other is a smoky, rhythm and blues-filled juke joint”.
“The beauty unearthed in Bubba’s shed acknowledges a set of entirely strange and overlooked practices,
graded into black vernacular.”
“In these simple forms, extraordinary inventions abound.”
The architect aims to raise “values of reuse and care” which are based on the same core.
According to the architect, “Vernaculars really did ascend in these exceptional circumstances.
The architecture’s origins will forever remain a legend.”
Kante added: “For me, these origins are real, they will forever indicate my roots and my place in the world.
In the black tradition, aspirations for beauty and improvement are intertwined with struggle and self-determination.
Complex and contradictory motives
Kanti believes that the installation is characterized by “complex and paradoxical motives”,
while its function is simple.
The installation consists of a series of outdoor rooms for shade and occasion.
It consists of a “symbolic hypertrophied roof”, serving as the first work of the shelter,
whose asymmetry is the background on one side and the entrance on the other.
The architect considered its tectonics carefully and created an installation that could be easily disassembled and reused.
He tries to relieve the cladding from the accuracy of the plan and section,
and sometimes connects the wall and the ceiling.
The architect continued, “It can be filled from the inside with sound or with the quietness of its surroundings.
This is Edgar’s Cottage.”
Sean Canty
Sean Canty is an assistant professor of architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Founded in 2017 by Sean Canty, Studio is an architectural practice to bring “new geometries and materials to enrich the spaces of everyday life – from residential and cultural programs to public spaces”.
Sean Canty worked with Hanif Kara, Co-Founder and Design Director of AKT II Tibuzzi (AKT II) Erich Gruber
Erich Bergmeister of LignoAlp, technical consultants for the structure.
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