by Michael J. Solender | photographs by Justin Driscoll
A canopy of cloudlike aluminum balloons, intermeshed and slightly misshapen, stretches toward the sky along the entrance of the Valerie C. Woodard Center off Freedom Drive in west Charlotte.
Pillars of Dreams is the name of the airy, fanciful pavilion that was created and installed in 2019 by Marc Fornes. The artist and architect leads the New York City-based studio THEVERYMANY, a group whose computationally designed works aim to provide a “unique spatial experience” for viewers.
The work was commissioned by the Charlotte/Mecklenburg Public Art Commission and the Arts & Science Council. It is the second piece designed by Fornes for the Queen City, coming one year after his Wanderwall Façade, the eight-story blue-green architectural skin wrapping uptown’s Brooklyn Village Station parking garage.
With Pillars of Dreams, Fornes fabricated a canopy of dimpled orbs that appear to float above the ground at varying heights and allow for visitors to occupy space in their hollowed interiors, or admire their form from afar. A structural and engineering marvel, the sculpture is a giant jigsaw puzzle composed of more than 3,500 individual parts fastened together with 54,000 rivets.
It’s the scale of the structure that reveals its most fascinating feature, according to Fornes.
Pillars of Dreams is “a universe curved in all directions,” Fornes told The Architect’s Newspaper in 2019. While the sculpture is eye-catching from a distance, the colors intensify as one gets closer, eventually enveloping the viewer standing below.
Dreamy, indeed. SP
