National Center for Science &
Innovation of Lithuania
Kaunas, Lithuania
2016
Situated in an important urban park in Kaunas, Lithuania, the National Center for Science and Innovation proposal is comprised of a series of cube-like fractal geometries placed on heavily planted botanical plinths. The project’s origins emerge from Philosopher Timothy Morton’s work on “Dark Ecology” which reconsiders for a new millennium the historic boundary between human and nature. The composition of the project formally investigates this boundary through reinventing the architectural and landscape fusion strategies found in mid-16th century French Baroque paintings by figures such as Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorraine. In these paintings, as with the proposal, particular emphasis is placed on aesthetic interlocking of architectural and landscape elements, rather than the reinforcement of landscape as something outside of an architectural composition.