SOMETHING THERE IS

THAT DOESNT LOVE

A WALL

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it

And spills the upper boulders in the sun

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

Robert Frost

One: The Wall

This project begins with a wall. Situated between the Belvedere Palace and the Botanical Gardens in Vienna, the wall is almost invisible—weathered, decayed, and largely overlooked. Its material presence is minimal, yet its function is exact: to demarcate, to separate, to define what is inside and what is outside.

Despite its modest form, the wall establishes a firm division between two adjacent but disconnected domains. The Belvedere, with its expansive gardens, operates as a cultural landmark, occasionally appropriated by locals as a running track. The Botanical Garden, although physically adjacent, remains quieter, visited primarily by nearby residents. The wall prevents exchange, sustaining two parallel publics that remain unaware of one another.

Unlike walls charged with monumental symbolism, such as the Berlin Wall, this boundary produces no spectacle. There are no viewing towers, no crowds gathering to observe across its edge. Its political potency lies precisely in its quietness: a subtle but effective infrastructure of exclusion.

The project proposes to engage, rather than erase, this condition. An artist residency is situated along the axis of the wall, transforming an overlooked boundary into an architectural framework. Instead of removing the barrier, the intervention amplifies it, making its spatial, social, and political roles visible. At the same time, the residency invites artists and visitors to occupy this threshold, generating deliberate instability where contrast and overlap may occur. In this way, separation is not eliminated but critically re-staged, opening the possibility for new events to emerge.

Two: The Mass

In contemporary construction, solidity has largely receded. Industrialized materials, combined with the logistical demands of distribution, shipping, and rapid assembly, have privileged lightness over permanence. Architecture, as a result, has become increasingly hollow, superficial, and dependent on tectonic systems and composite assemblies. This condition has become the dominant standard.

The project challenges this tendency by reintroducing mass as a defining quality. Spaces are conceived as heavy, carved, and embedded within the ground, as though architecture were located in the belly of the earth rather than resting on its surface. Above ground, only minimal elements appear—ventilation shafts that function as modest interruptions rather than dominant forms. The spatial trajectory is therefore one of descent: an exploration of architecture that moves downward, rediscovering weight, depth, and earthbound presence.

Three: The Spatial Organization

The project develops a spatial organization that resists predetermined function, structuring itself instead around the unfolding of events. Inspiration is drawn from cinematic structures: in Pulp Fiction, multiple narratives converge around the briefcase; in The Big Lebowski, disparate episodes are held together by the rug. Similarly, here, the architecture is organized by a sequence of descent, where the path itself provides coherence rather than fixed program.

As visitors descend, spaces gradually expand, becoming broader and more open. This progression establishes a rhythm of compression and release, culminating in a final act of vertical expulsion, as elevators rapidly return the visitor to the surface. Architecture, in this formulation, is not a container for static functions but a medium for spatial experience—an event structure in itself.

Four: The Pool and the Running Track

Like many tourist landmarks, the Belvedere gradually loses its aura for local residents. Its grandeur becomes familiar, its spectacle exhausted, no longer offering an experience worth repetition. Instead, its gardens are pragmatically repurposed as a running track—a local appropriation of a monumental site.

The project engages this condition by formalizing the track along its oval-shaped edge, integrating it into the architectural framework. In parallel, the gaps that form between heavy masses and their edges are occupied by pools. These pools extend the project’s exploration of event and space: while the track inscribes movement and continuity, the pools provide moments of suspension and immersion.

Historically, pools have been understood as artificial paradises, spaces where gravity is suspended and danger neutralized. Within their controlled boundaries, water becomes domesticated—an element of pleasure, equilibrium, and leisure. In this project, pools function not only as recreational devices but also as counterpoints to mass and descent: a horizontal pause, a reflective surface, a calibrated condition of release.

Conclusion

Taken together, the project explores architecture as a negotiation between separation and encounter, mass and lightness, descent and release. The wall provides the initial condition: an unnoticed yet politically charged line of exclusion. Mass reintroduces gravity and permanence, challenging contemporary tendencies toward weightlessness. Spatial organization frames experience through descent, generating a sequence of events rather than predetermined functions. Finally, the running track and pools articulate new ways of inhabiting the edge, balancing movement with suspension.

The project ultimately proposes architecture as a critical instrument: not to erase boundaries but to expose, re-stage, and reimagine them. By amplifying conditions that might otherwise remain invisible, it creates the possibility of new forms of collective experience—moments when division can be confronted, occupied, and, at least temporarily, transformed.