First Office
First Office
▶
▶

PS1 Dolmen

First Office

MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program Competition Proposal

2016 (unbuilt)

First Office

Robert Smithson Photographed by Nancy Holt at the Pentre Ifan Dolmen, dating 3,500 BCE, in Wales (1969).

Competition Finalist: 2016 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program Competition

Client: Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1

First Office Team: Anna Neimark, Andrew Atwood, Lily Nourmansouri, Alison Rust, Frank Yang

UC Berkeley Workshop: Julian Daly, Brooke Hair, Jeff Marsch, Edwin Obrien, Alex Spatzier

SCI-Arc Workshop: Deborah Garcia, Connor Gravelle, Daniel Hapton, Kyla Schaefer, Tidus Ta

Fabrication: Andrew Baccon, Machinemade, Erik Tietz, Machinemade

Structural Engineering: Matthew Melnyk, Nous

App Design: Theo Triantafyllidis

First Office

Dolmens Ordered by Leg Count:

(Top Row, left to right)
Dolmen de Vaour, France.
Dolmen de Bagnol, Limousin, France.
Dolmen Bachwen, Gwynedd, Wales.

(Middle Row, left to right)
Dolmen of Sindh, Pakistan.
Dolmen at Gwangju, South Korea.
Chokahatu Dolmen, India.

(Bottom Row, left to right)
Dolmen de la Piedra Gentil, Guatemala.
Dolmen de Menga, Spain.
Brownhill Dolmen in North Salem, New York, United States of America.

Theo Triantafyllidis in Collaboration with First Office, MOMA PS1 Dolmen App

Dolmens are prehistoric monuments that we don’t know anything about. And we frankly don’t care; after all, we are not anthropologists. But because there are so many of them out there (dolmens that is, not anthropologists), and because they exist on nearly every continent, yet always manage to look somewhat alike, we thought that it would be appropriate to study them as they appear to us today: a bit crooked, half buried, and mostly broken.

First Office

Dolmens Modeled in Paper:

Dolmen de Vaour, France.
Dolmen de Bagnol, Limousin, France.
Dolmen Bachwen, Gwynedd, Wales.
Dolmen at Gwangju, South Korea.

We noted that their informal composition, we noted, built on asymmetrical parts that are deteriorating, often led to bad posture. Unlike some more canonical erect precedents, we thought that these things had character, like a dirty uncle or a stinky cheese. And after a not-so-thorough study of about twenty of them, we decided to do something that we were advised on numerous occasions against: a Dolmen for the courtyard of MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, New York.

First Office
First Office

Theo Triantafyllidis in Collaboration with First Office, MOMA PS1 Dolmen App Still Shots.

First Office

PS1 Site Model with Dolmen

First Office

Site Plan at Capstone Level

Too big to fit neatly within the courtyard’s bounding walls, too small to hover clearly above them, the PS1 Dolmen seems a bit out of place. It’s off balance, for sure, gray and dull, nailed in place, with virtually only paint holding it together at the seams. The wooden capstone box seems to leak at the mere thought of rain.

First Office

Site Model Photograph

Maybe it is no place for a party. Everyone agreed. They shook their heads. There was an awkward silence.

First Office

Short Section Through the Site

First Office

Dolmen Inside MoMA PS1 Courtyard, Rendering

First Office

Dolmen Outside MoMA PS1 Courtyard, Rendering

First Office

Model Photograph at Ground Level

First Office

Plan at Ground Level

First Office

Model Photograph at Capstone Level

First Office

Plan at Capstone Level

First Office

Long Elevation

First Office

Long Section

First Office

Model Photograph Long Elevation

First Office

Short Elevation with Scale Figures

First Office

Short Section

First Office
First Office
First Office

Model Photograph in Perspective

First Office
First Office

Rain Animation Stills

Site: Mr. Wren

First Office was founded in 2011 by Anna Neimark and Andrew Atwood to create a dialog between architectural practice and academic discourse. Their collaborative work spans buildings, exhibitions, and publications, all rooted in the belief that architecture is a form of cultural production.

The practice has engaged with leading institutions, including the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, the Chicago and Venice Biennials, MoMA PS1’s Young Architects Program, and the Architectural League of New York. The projects and essays of First Office have been recognized with awards and compiled in Nine Essays (Treatise Press, 2015), as well as in Andrew’s publication Not Interesting: On the Limits of Criticism in Architecture (Applied Research and Design, 2017).

Anna Neimark
Design Faculty and Visual Studies Coordinator, SCI-Arc
anna.neimark@gmail.com

Andrew Atwood
Licensed Architect and Associate Professor, UC Berkeley
w.andrew.atwood@gmail.com