The Video Centre
Critic: Rudolphe El-khoury
Spring 1995

Given the program of 10 viewing rooms for one person, 1 viewing room for 25 people, one production/distribution office for 4 people, 1 editing room with a 20 foot long wall, a library space with storage the equivalent to a 10x20 foot wall, a video rental counter, and a cafe, we were asked to propose a video centre that would fit on a standard New York lot of 25x100 feet.

Immediately, I came up with a strategy of comparison. Making a game of the IQ test (i.e. puppy is to dog as kitten is to cat), I began to find relations between various elements of the program. While some dichotomies were obvious, other were more innovative. Then I devised the metaphor of a wall as embodying the common link (i.e. a kitchen and a video editing room are related because they are both venues for creativity).

After establishing these analogies along an elongated hypothetical wall, it was time to be creative. Since one wall is boring and impractical, we began toying with other concepts of division. Soon, a wall was no longer just a wall, but could also be a floor plane or some other symmetrical divider. After reworking this problem over and over, we began to come up with some twisted arrangements. For example, a group of forty private viewing rooms on the back of the building could be transformed into one giant viewing room by projecting images onto a wall across the alley.

On a more perverse note, thick walls around a bathroom stall could allow members of the opposite sex to unknowingly squat side by side. Suspended structures could house videotapes on one floor, yet be table tops on a floor above. This video centre is about relationships; it elicits curiosity from the street, then slowly begins to unfold parallels as you walk through and experience the space.