Index

The Infinite Room (Metaspace 1)

The Infinite Room is a permanent light and sound sculpture sited in a building designed by Cooper Hewitt National Design Award recipient Tom Kundig of Seattle-based Olson Kundig architects. Lit solely through an oculus, the smooth curvilinear geometry of the sculpture scatters natural light to create a borderless space. The interior shifts in appearance with changing light conditions, giving The Infinite Room an ephemeral quality. The space appears to continually iterate new versions of itself.

Girardoni conceived the sculpture as a constantly changing environment where natural light is the protagonist. The sculpture is elliptical in plan and absent of any corner geometry. Light flows in through a circular aperture from above and refracts off The Infinite Room’s velvet-smooth, white interior shell. Natural light scatters inside the sculpture’s geometry, blurring the border between matter and light.

Girardoni’s sculpture on the inside and Kundig’s architecture on the outside set up ephemeral and experiential conditions that are deliberately in opposition to one another. Kundig’s raw granite boulders, sourced directly from the site, anchor the building’s western walls. The rocks’ rough, grounding physicality contrasts Girardoni’s pure white, ethereal space. As visitors move from the wide-open setting of the natural site, through Kundig’s rugged house, and into Girardoni’s light-filled Infinite Room, the focus shifts from a reflection on nature, to the nature of reflection.