DesCours is a week-long, contemporary architecture and art event that looks towards the future in showcasing experimental, cutting-edge new media and interactive installations while embracing New Orleans rich cultural heritage. During DesCours, internationally recognized architects, designers and artists transform unique, hidden spaces within the French Quarter and Central Business District into destination places for visitors and locals alike.
Following an international design competition, a total of 11 artists and architects (individuals and teams) will be selected through invitation and proposal process to participate by creating installations for French Quarter courtyards, downtown building lobbies, rooftops, walkways and other ‘hidden’ New Orleans spaces. Overall, the AIA New Orleans is seeking installations that react and respond both to the historic nature of the sites, and to the public audience that views them.
In July, HAA submitted a design proposal for the DesCours design competition.
Our submission can be viewed in the above graphics and in the following text:
“Waters,” religious historian Mircea Eliade explained in the 1950s, are “spring and origin, the reservoir of all the possibilities of existence; they precede every form and support every creation.” The waters of New Orleans permeate all aspects of life. Literally, culturally, and economically, the city is defined by the waters that surround it. Historically, the waters have permanently marked the city, bringing great destruction, followed by great renaissance. In whatever form or context, waters invariably retain their greatest natural function; they disintegrate, abolish forms; they are at once purifying and regenerating.
Along with great natural power comes great human responsibility. It is these dualities of power/responsibility and human/nature that we will choose to celebrate through our proposed DESCOURS installation.
“I must live near a lake,” wrote Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, who waded into the depths of the psyche and equated water with the unconscious. “Without water, I thought, nobody could live at all.”
The body thirsts. So does the spirit of New Orleans. Located in a back alley, three long horizontal planes will imbibe the waters of this great city. Each specific to scale (Bayou, Mississippi, and the Gulf of Mexico), the three planes playfully overlap, transforming the night time hours of this urban space into an interactive gallery, a dynamic and newly occupiable space.
“It is through water that the world becomes transparent, is able to show the transcendent.” – Mircea Eliade
The waters of New Orleans contain memories. Exposing these memories, the alternating literal and phenomenal transparencies, celebrate the tenuous relationship between Human and Nature. The long and narrow alleyway provides an ideal backdrop for this duality. As participants move through the urban threshold, they are both reflected and exposed to the urban environment. Is it the city that controls the water or does the water control the city? More importantly, what is the power of the individual within this already established tension?
“Contact with water always brings a regeneration.” – Mircea Eliade
The lighting level fluctuates; human movement through the space strategically turns on specific water pumps. Participants playfully rearrange the magnets, altering the submerged LED’s. As the LED’s move, the changing water patterns stir the previously unnoticed sediments. Each user unwittingly alters the display, illustrating the power of one individual within a previously serene canvas.
As multiple users engage the alleyway, participant reflections are first merged with the water’s refracted historic context, and then merged into one. All become submerged in the water’s disturbances. Does a person distort the water? Or does the water distort the person? These planes represent the city’s regeneration.
Along with great natural power comes great human responsibility. It is these dualities of power/responsibility and human/nature that we will choose to celebrate through our proposed DESCOURS installation.
