There are only a few days left until the end of one of the most interesting musical and artistic events of the last twenty years: Coachella. To explain what the Coachella Festival (full name Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival) is, we have to start with the name.
The word Coachella is taken from the snake symbol of Mexico City, so it is a Spanish word and should be pronounced as such. Founded 20 years ago, the festival is held at Empire Polo Field in Indio, California, on an enormous desert plain. Over the years, it has become an unmissable event for lovers of alternative and electronic music, but also for those who want to understand the new fashion trends, to the point that during the event people talk about Coachella style.
What goes unnoticed is the research and application of architecture for immersive art installations. We particularly wanted to shine the spotlight on one of the most interesting installations of this new edition called Playground and designed by the architecture studio Architensions.
“The Playground takes its inspiration from Constant Nieuwenhuys’s New Babylon, a city of improvisation, chances, and play as a critical alternative to the burdens imposed by production. The shapes themselves refer to urban typologies for leisure such as piazzas, theatres, parks, and arcades, albeit vertically arranged within a porous grid that gives an order to the landscape of different shapes. The design evokes a familiar urban landscape, where the significance of play is reverted to its original definition of free personal time, in other words, a playground. Similar to Cedric Price’s Fun Palace, the grids create a new common ground, an open space that opposes the isolation and homogeneity of technologically mediated experiences.”
