Suchi Reddy's contemplative kaleidoscope for the National Building Museum

“In a time when we are so intent on ways to "magnify ourselves," what might the role of reflection be?"

- Suchi Reddy

Curiosity-inspiring National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. epitomises the impact of architecture, engineering, landscape design, construction, planning, and design through its curated experiences. Summer Block Party—the museum’s annual exhibition—has over the years housed unique large-scale installations. In 2021, Lisa Marie Thalhammer’s Equilateral Network displayed interactive mural art on the lawn outside the museum, while Rockwell Group’s Lawn composed an artificial green space, furnished with hammocks in 2019. This year Suchi Reddy, founder of studio Reddymade, was selected to create the installation for the seventh edition of the exhibition, making her the first person of colour to be selected for this role.

The New York-based architect and designer is best known for her large-scale projects, centered around neuro-aesthetics with a particular focus on how a space makes one feel. A strong believer in the idea of "design justice", her body of work spans all mediums—physical, digital, or hybrid—keeping in mind design strategy, tectonics, and materiality. Her research-oriented practice is located at the intersection of neuroscience, art, and architecture, and delivers projects that are dynamic, relevant, and a step ahead of the dominant narrative. “My mantra is form follows feeling,” Reddy says. “I believe that architecture, environments, and experiences play an essential role in shaping an understanding of ourselves as humans with agency, equity, and empathy.”

Bringing her emotion-centric ethos to Look Here, Reddy’s sculptural installation reveals reflective fractals that visitors encounter on an oval ramp that fills the Center Court of the National Building Museum's Great Hall. Oversized mirrored elements shaped like the familiar folded-paper "fortune-tellers" of our childhood hang from above, reflecting the museum's interior. The movement of the elements and the changing light as the sun passes through space transforms the Great Hall into a contemplative space during the day and a disco at night with its interplay of reflected light creating a dynamic experience. "All of my work privileges human experience and this was no exception. I wanted to allow the visitors the opportunity to feel wonder and discovery, and a sense of serenity in a very architecturally active space," Reddy tells STIR.

As visitors make their way along the ramp, they encounter iconic images of activist gatherings in Washington, D.C., such as the 1963 March on Washington which famously advocated for the civil and economic rights of African Americans. At the march, the final speaker Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech in which he called for an end to racism. These images emphasise that Washington was designed not only to house a democratic government but also to be a physical representation of democratic ideals and beliefs, by telling the story of the people and their political struggle. The iconography embodies Reddy's philosophy that built environments have the power to represent and shape our society. “As visitors experience the images of activism in Look Here,” she adds, “it’s my hope that they will see themselves in the reflective surfaces, as part of these important moments in our history.”

Describing her intent with the work, Reddy says, "As people walk up the ramp to the central platform with a central interactive element, I want them to be reflected in images of important activist marches, such as The March on Washington (which is coming up on its 60^th anniversary in August), in order to ground the experience in the very important context of the city. I would like visitors to take away a sense of joy and reflection. In a time when we are so intent on ways to "magnify ourselves," what might the role of reflection be?"

At the highest point of the ramp, guests come across a circular platform with comfortable cushioned seats that invite them to recline and take a pause while being surrounded by the captivating display of reflective elements resembling kaleidoscopes. However, unlike the traditional ones with colourful beads and sequins, her kaleidoscopes, each spanning nine feet in length, focus on showcasing and reflecting the iconic architectural features of the building, including its eight massive Corinthian columns. "Negotiating the giant scale of the space was the first task at hand in imagining the installation. The space is so large that one feels small in it, and my goal was to create an experience that brings the building shown to the viewer through reflections and allows them to feel held in it,” observes the Chennai-born designer.

With her conviction that design is always political, Reddy tries to interface with people’s emotions and their socioeconomic and cultural circumstances with every work. Particularly with Look Here, she invites viewers to contemplate the place of activism in democracy through the architecture of the museum. “By transforming our Great Hall into an abstract ‘Hall of Mirrors,’ we hope our visitors will come to appreciate the museum’s unique architectural details and D.C.’s important activist history through an entirely new lens," says Aileen Fuchs, President and Executive Director of the National Building Museum. The public art installation has been open to the public since July 01, 2023, and will be on display till September 04, 2023.

“The reason why we are architects is that we want to do things that serve and uplift the people that we work for. And if that is not an option, if we are not achieving that in some way, then we are failing,” Reddy mentioned in a previous interview with STIR. Look Here thus reflects her conviction and is an iconic addition to her oeuvre of intense emotion-triggering designs which re-examine what a form and space can do, aesthetically as well as experientially. The Indian-American architect's previous projects featured on STIR include Shaped By Air at the Milan Design Week, and me+you at the Smithsonian.

(Text by Aatmi Chitalia, Intern at STIR)