What is choreography? This is nothing more than a set of movements that the choreographer chooses; their set changes depending on whether classical ballet is staged, or, on the contrary, modern dance. In choreography, every movement is important, because one wrong gesture can change the structure of the dance, disrupt its dynamics or plasticity. The projects of the Bolles-Wilson architectural bureau are also a kind of dance performances, only the role of gestures is played here by architectural details.
“Architectural choreography” is what Peter Wilson said about his projects. True, he only calls the interiors of buildings that way, but the term introduced well conveys the feeling arising from the entire building as a whole. The Bolles-Wilson projects shown at the lecture are indeed very mobile and dynamic. Moreover, this property of them manifests itself already at the design stage, which is why it is difficult to say without a special comment that we are facing a finished building or just a model.
In creating his buildings, Peter Wilson plays with the form and the viewer. When he builds "The House Ninja Passed By" in Japan for critic Akiro Suzuki's family, he places it on a very small plot, five by seven meters. At the same time, outside we see a solid, seemingly one-room volume, hovering over a parking space for one miniature car, arranged, it seems, "right on the sidewalk." In fact, the building has three floors, many rooms and utility rooms, but we can understand this only by going inside or looking at the drawing.
In Rotterdam, Peter Wilson "played out" the state border of Holland and America so that residents of the Netherlands can freely enter the United States even every day. The plot is divided into two parts, between which the border passes. Holland is laid out in metal letters from the side of Holland, and Amerika from the side of the United States. On the territory of Holland there is a New York hotel surrounded by cafeterias; they will be separated from America by a glass wall. Thus, while drinking coffee, visitors to the cafe can also "admire" America, which has a common sea border with Holland.
One of Bolles-Wilson's most famous projects is the Münster City Library. It is often called a "textbook" for architects. According to the architect, thanks to this building, a real “Reader Revolution” took place in Münster, since after the construction of the library was completed, the number of readers increased several times.
Peter Wilson began his lecture with the words: "Although it often seems that architects are building non-living buildings, they are building them for people." The buildings of the architectural bureau Bolles-Wilson are definitely built for people and it is this property that Peter Wilson managed to demonstrate in his lecture.
