Rockefeller Pavilion
2024.3-2024.5
Architecture
We sought to design a community space that activates light, color, and sound to echo the nearby Rockefeller Chapel. The pavilion is positioned on a lawn that is roughly 140m long and 40m wide (after clearing existing landscaping) facing west. Structurally, it consists of a mound that holds a shallow amphitheatre-pit, surrounded by a ring of stone pavements, and a large, overhanging “canopy”. The canopy is made with thousands of glass pipes tainted in select colors, an element inspired by the tubes of the church organ and the stained glass of Gothic chapels. As the sun moves across the sky during the day, the stone surfaces of the amphitheatre as well as the surrounding pavement would be mantled in different shades of colors, generating a unique experience of color that ever-changes with the season, the weather, and the time of day. As the sun sets in the west, which UChicago students have always adored from the open lawns of our site, it is framed in the opening of the pavilion.