McNeal, Arizona – USA
Excerpt from Minimalissimo ® article on the pavilion
Not only is McNeal 020 a twist to the poetic American landscape, but it is also a testament to change. It is the vortex where the debris of time will gather, fill up the chamber and its slopes, bury the entire whole, and once again return the desert to what it once was.Text Description and Drawings courtesy of architect, excerpted from Archdaily
“McNeal 020 emerged from the desire of David Telerman and a private client based in France to build a perennial structure in the American desert, Southern Arizona, in response to the shared fascination for the surrealist nature, which brought years before artists such as Max Ernst in search of new forms. By bringing together the raw elements of the surrounding place, the building must offer a landscape to experience, as a photographer or a painter would do with their own means, with precise attention to the vastness of the desert, the weight of the wind, and the geometrical precision of the light.”
“Despite its apparent simplicity, the structure tends to express, almost in a primitive way, the contrast between nature that gradually disappears down the stairs in a quiet sound and the view of nature reappearing while climbing up the stairs, the reddish ground, heavy wind, and the mountains in the far end.”