ARCO 2019

ARCO is a huge horizontal space, very homogeneous in its great diversity and that can be perceived as a chaotic and exhausting place. It does not have the labyrinthine geometry of the bazaar, but it does have its character. We have arranged all the galleries in order to make this space more legible and comfortable than in other years. This was the first task. The project margin where the galleries are installed is small. It is like a puzzle in which all the pieces have been fitting together over the years and in which it is difficult to make major variations. Therefore, it is rather a matter of making small alterations in the rigorous order of the grid to facilitate orientation and flows.

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ARCO is a place of encounters. This collective condition, beyond the collecting and commercial activity implied by the fair and the galleries, makes ARCO a great public space. And it needs, like all of them, an identity and a specific materialization. This project transforms that space, fundamentally horizontal, into one in which the vertical dimension has an important visual presence. We do this by hanging light and luminous lanterns from the ceiling, three circular ones and another much larger one, longitudinally, that point out the public places of the fair, the places where to meet and take a break.

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ARCO has something of the nineteenth-century 'salon' in which to go for a walk. This 'salon' materializes, in this edition, with the fiction of a 'gallery' built with three elements. A large 'red' carpet that links the two pavilions where the fair is held, giving unity to the whole, and that runs through and organizes all the common spaces. On it, a huge lantern is built that covers the space of the 'gallery' and that is materialized with an artifact of zigzagging geometry that accompanies it along its entire length. It is constructed exclusively with fabric and light. Finally, a set of repetitive vertical elements indicates the access and use of each of these common spaces, bringing legibility to this 'gallery' to look and be seen.

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