Oro Azul Exhibition Pavilion
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1969
Sociedad Rural Argentina is one of the spaces where major exhibitions are being held, among them industry and commerce exhibition. This was the context for the exhibition pavilion for Oro Azul, a company that produces domestic appliances like refrigerators and stoves.
Since the goal of the exhibition was to present and promote the latest designs for domestic appliances, the pavilion literally becomes a billboard, an urban advertising device except that instead of being visible from a street or road, the project transforms the site and treats it as a road where the billboard stands proposing a view for the pedestrians visiting the fair instead of the “view from the road” for the car.
The inhabitable billboard: an elevator brings the visitors to a “balcony” where the appliances are displayed and a staircase on the opposite side of the balcony takes the visitors back to the ground where a cook demonstrates the stove offering snacks and refreshments.
The billboard “works” at two scales: from afar and from very close. The painted billboard collage includes figures at the scale of the visitors and a large figure at the urban scale.
Since the goal of the exhibition was to present and promote the latest designs for domestic appliances, the pavilion literally becomes a billboard, an urban advertising device except that instead of being visible from a street or road, the project transforms the site and treats it as a road where the billboard stands proposing a view for the pedestrians visiting the fair instead of the “view from the road” for the car.
The inhabitable billboard: an elevator brings the visitors to a “balcony” where the appliances are displayed and a staircase on the opposite side of the balcony takes the visitors back to the ground where a cook demonstrates the stove offering snacks and refreshments.
The billboard “works” at two scales: from afar and from very close. The painted billboard collage includes figures at the scale of the visitors and a large figure at the urban scale.