Mexico City–based firm Pedro y Juana has won The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1’s 20th annual Young Architects Program (YAP). Pedro y Juana founders Ana Paula Ruiz Galindo and Mecky Reuss beat out four other finalists for the prize with their immersive junglescape titled Hórama Rama.
The design for the installation includes a space frame–supported stage set made up of jungle-themed prints as well as custom-made hammocks from Mexico’s Yucatán region. The circular frame is raised above the height of the courtyard walls and is clad along its exterior with projecting dimensional lumber “bristles” that will be reused after the installation’s run at the museum.
One end of Hórama Rama is anchored by a two-story waterfall that will act as a misting device during the hot summer months. Describing the waterfall, Ruiz Galindo said, “The project is jungle themed, so we couldn’t resist adding a waterfall” to meet the competition brief’s water feature requirement. Reuss added that the waterfall would also animate the space with the sound of falling water.
The drum-shaped installation is set to take over the MoMA PS1 courtyard for the museum’s Warm Up summer concert series from June to September later this year.
Sean Anderson, associate curator in MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design, described the winning proposal as a “world-within-a-world…Hórama Rama, is a manifold of views in which to see and be seen, to find and lose oneself in a radically different environment. The installation constructs a collection of scenes into which visitors may escape, even if for a moment, whether in a hammock or by the waterfall.”
MoMA PS1 Chief Curator Peter Eleey added that “by juxtaposing two landscapes in transition—the jungle and the Long Island City skyline—[Pedro y Juana] draw attention to the evolving conditions of our environment, both globally and locally, at a crucial moment.”
Other finalists for this year’s MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program included Low Design Office (DK Osseo-Asare and Ryan Bollom); Oana Stănescu and Akane Moriyama; Matter Design (Brandon Clifford, Johanna Lobdell, and Wes McGee); and TO (José G. Amozurrutia and Carlos Facio). Proposals from all five teams will be exhibited at MoMA PS1 in Queens, New York City, in summer 2019.
