Memory Temple

Project Details

Project Description

Local firm Patrick Tighe Architecture designed Memory Temple for the SCI-Arc Gallery with an innovative twist. The firm commissioned composer Ken Ueno to author a musical composition for the installation, made from a renewable polyurethane foam. After a spectrogram mapped the points and vectors of the composition’s frequency, robots carved those exact contours into the installation walls.

Jury: “The idea of generating a form-aesthetic memory of environmental sounds by using a six-axis CNC machine that mills mapped frequencies, translated into points and vectors, is altogether fascinating. … Interior space, in this case, becomes a physical manifestation of another aspect of current culture.”

Client: “I would say the aspiration of the SCI-Arc Gallery is introverted, meaning the work comes from the personal, idiosyncratic, and private inclinations of the architect. When it comes to Patrick Tighe, this work is very different than what he has typically done. So rather than repeating what he has already learned, this has a very different sensibility. Its interest is in connecting outside the traditional world of architecture to music. Its quizzical, odd, unusual shape is, in a way, a search for something that stimulates the idea to create a result. This is an argument for something beyond mere technique.” —Eric Owen Moss, FAIA, director, SCI-Arc