‘deliberate leak’ installation perforates messe basel facade, reconciling city and architecture

the architects perforate the glazed facade and invite visitors to access the exhibition through an ascending window cleaning platform.

M-E C edited by ravail khan August 4, 2022 4 min

MacIver-Ek Chevroulet’s ‘deliberate leak’ installation

As Laureates of the Swiss Art Awards 2021, Neuchâtel based architectural office MacIver-Ek Chevroulet has been invited to design an installation for this year’s Basel Art Week in Switzerland. Their new project, titled Deliberate Leak, is a reaction towards the exclusive nature of the event taking part in the iconic Messe Basel, allowing the city to ‘leak’ into the building. The exhibition and congress center is located in the heart of the city and yet completely detached from it. MacIver-Ek Chevroulet’s installation reconciles the architecture with the city and its people, disrupting the flat glazed façade of the exhibition hall, which feigns transparency though constantly reflects its surroundings, recomposing the elements and perforating the building. The new intervention invites guests to access the exhibition through a window cleaning platform thus creating a direct link between the city and the event.

city and architecture are reconciled with installation by maciver-ek chevroulet that perforates messe basel façade — MacIver-Ek Chevroulet’s installation perforates the facade to ‘leak’ the city into the building

all images courtesy of the author

recomposing messe basel, switzerland

About moving rather than adding, the architects state that Deliberate Leak’s minimal intervention ‘winks to Lucius and Annemarie Burckhardt’s principle of the minimal intervention: design is replaced by observation and matter by precision’. A careful re-composition of the existing layers of the facade turns the building around, opening it towards the city, and allowing the city to leak in. MacIver-Ek Chevroulet projects one of the 3.5 x 2 meter window panes of the half kilometer-long glass façade outwards, suspending it in the air by steel clamps. Meanwhile, a window cleaning clamp is hung from the existing monumental steel beam crowning the building.

Curious passersby traversing the streetfront are invited to hop onto the platform, experience the installation, and enjoy the view of the neighbourhood as they smoothly ascend. As the city starts to leak into the building eleven meters above the ground, passengers enter the building through the small gap of the displaced window, appearing as performers of a show to unassuming visitors inside the exhibition. In between rides, a few disruptions took place at the installation, such as a ping pong tournament, a candlelit dinner and a spontaneous concert performed by students of Basel’s renowned jazz school. Throughout the week-long art fair, which took place from 13 to 19 June 2022, several thousand visitors entered through this Deliberate Leak, ranging from art aficionados to locals unaware of the event taking place inside.

city-architecture-installation-perforates-messe-basel-facade-maciver-ek-chevroulet-designboom-2 — a singular, small window pane projects out of the facade, suspended in the air by steel clamps

city-architecture-installation-perforates-messe-basel-facade-maciver-ek-chevroulet-designboom-1 — visitors enter and exit the exhibition through the window, ascending and descending from the platform

arrival on the exhibition floor The upper deck whilst waiting for the moving platform

project info:

name: Deliberate Leak
architects: MacIver-Ek Chevroulet

team: Anna MacIver-Ek, Meryl Barthe, Axel Chevroulet

client: Federal Office of Culture

photography & videos: MacIver-Ek Chevroulet, Sven Högger, Charline Dayer, Pierre Marmy, Jeremy Morris

supported by: Ikea Foundation, Ville de Neuchâtel

location: Basel, Switzerland

year: 2022

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions’ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.