A Hall for Hull

In autumn 2017, a new installation will transform Trinity Square in Hull. In collaboration with Hull 2017, and supported by the British Council, RIBA has commissioned internationally renowned Chile-based architecture practice Pezo von Ellrichshausen and artist Felice Varini to design a temporary structure in response to the historic heart of the city. 

Presented as a monumental hypostyle room, open to the sky and the immediate surroundings, 'A Hall for Hull' consists of sixteen accessible columns, all constructed in galvanised steel and placed in a grid formation. This setting is carefully distorted by Varini's work; a delicate colour figure that will redefine the geometry of the rigid system, thus challenge our perception of perspective, how we imagine the use of public space and the very scale of this particular civic setting. 

Pezo von Ellrichshausen is an art and architecture studio founded in 2002 by Mauricio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen. They live and work in the southern Chilean city of Concepcion, and teach at the Universidad Catolica in Santiago and at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. 

Felice Varini is a Swiss artist based in Paris. He works at the intersection of architecture, painting and Op art, exploring the illusions of geometry through eye-deceiving photographic techniques together with the tradition of pictorial representation. 

  A Hall for Hull is a joint commission by Hull 2017 and the Royal Institute of British Architects, supported by Wedge Group Galvanizing Ltd and the British Council, and is part of 'Look Up' - a Hull 2017 curated programme of temporary installations in public places and spaces around the city. Further in-kind support has been given by Setworks, Constant Structural Design and RMIG.