Architecture of the Occasion

In an age of casual dressing and informal, fluid social meetings, Pia Ednie-Brown , Associate Professor the School of Architecture and Design at RMIT University, Melbourne, highlights the paradox of the highly formalist nature of many temporary structures. Often designed to be the event itself, pop-ups have become the ‘architecture of the occasion’. These are epitomised by the elaborate and eccentric one-off designs of cultural pavilions or follies. Could it be, Ednie-Brown asks, that this shift to a formalist architecture is giving us the unique opportunity to embrace the casual informality of today's social interactions, while still getting ‘glimmeringly sequined up for the event’?