"Designed as a winding subterranean path, the steel retreat guides visitors beneath the surface of the Vitra Campus, bringing together Indian philosophy with meditative spatial rhythm. Along its curving walls, soft tones of gong and ceramic flute echo through hidden recesses. 'This architecture was born from a dream Doshi had of two interweaving cobras,' explains Khushnu Panthaki Hoof, a poetic image that finds form in the spiraling movement of the structure and symbolic reference to Kundalini, the coiled energy said to lie dormant at the base of the spine in yogic tradition."
"An audio system, embedded into concave cavities in the ground, diffuses layers of gong and flute tones that accompany one's passage through the space. The soundscape is not composed as music but experienced as vibration. 'It is sound, resonating through the visitor's body, that erases the boundary between self and structure,' observes Hoof."
"At the culmination of the path, visitors encounter a contemplation chamber illuminated by a hand-hammered brass mandala crafted in India. Its reflective surface scatters light across the interior, suggesting an inner cosmos of still movement, a fitting metaphor for Doshi's lifelong search for harmony between material and spirit."
The Doshi Retreat is a subterranean, winding steel pavilion on the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany, conceived by Balkrishna Doshi with Studio Sangath and completed by Khushnu Panthaki Hoof and Sönke Hoof. The design forms a spiraling path inspired by Doshi's dream of interweaving cobras and the Kundalini energy, producing a meditative spatial rhythm. An embedded sound system diffuses gong and ceramic flute tones experienced as vibration that blurs the line between body and structure. A hand-hammered brass mandala illuminates a contemplative chamber, scattering reflective light. The retreat is fabricated from forged and formed XCarb® low-carbon steel made from recycled materials.
Read at designboom | architecture & design magazine
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