TRAPÉZ, BUDAPEST (HU)
Noguchi Town is a place where nobody has ever been to and maybe nobody ever will.
However, one can get close to it. A range of unexplainable situations lead to Noguchi Town which are familiar but difficult to identify. Some appear like words emerging from the pages of a book, while others have been covered with paint; we can try to piece together the story by reading the words one after the other: stairs leading nowhere, doors that cannot be opened, small concrete buildings which once stopped somebody doing something, walled-up faucets, handrails running into the wall – it is the town of the absolute present moment.
Noguchi Town is a project by Andi Schmied. The town puts aside functionality, practicality, and perfection. In their place, architectural elements – which would look eccentric elsewhere – are a natural part of the landscape, giving an alternative reading of urban life as it is defined by the built environment.
The name of the town refers to sculptor, designer and architect Isamu Noguchi, and to the exuberant frame of mind with which he created urban plazas that combined European modernism and Japanese design culture. Noguchi Town maintains a close relationship with art in its everyday life – but in a subtle way, without ostentation. It tries to use art as a device through which we can contemplate the world around us in a different mode, one that reveals another reality where anything might happen.
