ARCOmadrid — Guest Lounge 2025

Madrid

Ephemeral Space

For ARCOmadrid 2025, we created an ephemeral space that went beyond its temporary nature. Drawing inspiration from the Amazon River, we explored themes of connection, transformation, and duality. Through a thoughtful mix of spatial design, materials, and performance, we aimed to create a lasting experience, where light, form, and sound converged to redefine the concept of the ephemeral.

The Amazon River seen from space.

Guest Lounge 2025: A New Landscape

The Amazon River, as a theme for this edition of ARCOmadrid, offered a starting point that is both symbolic and universal. Rather than representing the landscape directly, we focused on its underlying logic—its dualities. The project explores the coexistence of density and openness, light and shadow, wilderness and community. These tensions allowed us to construct a new landscape that is not defined by form, but by experience.

We designed a space that unfolds through curved geometries, referencing the slow meanders of the river. These gestures give shape to a sequence of environments: some porous and exposed, others sheltered and introspective. We were not interested in a central space or fixed point of view, but in a rhythm of transitions—a spatial narrative that reveals itself gradually.

What emerged was a place that resists direct interpretation. We avoided literal references to nature, instead working with abstraction and scale to evoke memory rather than image.

Between Exposure and Shelter

In an environment as active as a contemporary art fair, we were drawn to the idea of pause. The lounge became an opportunity to offer another tempo—one defined by softness, calm, and personal rhythm. Rather than a plaza, we proposed a constellation of micro-spaces: configurations that prioritize proximity and human scale.

Light played a defining role in shaping perception. During the day, a warm and even glow wrapped the space in a sense of calm. As light shifted to deeper reds, the atmosphere transformed—revealing a new intensity while maintaining a sense of restraint. These changes were not decorative, but atmospheric tools to recalibrate how visitors inhabit the space.

As part of the project, we also introduced performance as an integral layer of the experience. In an immersive celebration within the lounge, artist Maria Arnal presented an original sound piece that unfolded through the space. Voices—her own, multiplied and recomposed in collaboration with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center—inhabited the architecture like another material. Music, light, and space converged to generate a shared moment that expanded the project’s narrative: a collective encounter situated somewhere between the public and the intimate.

mesura, studio: [object Object] (Slide 1)

mesura, studio: [object Object] (Slide 2)

mesura, studio: [object Object] (Slide 3)

mesura, studio: [object Object] (Slide 4)

mesura, studio: [object Object] (Slide 5)

Photography by Ernst Haas. (1/5)

A Yanomami maloca in Brasil. Photography by Dennison Berwick. (2/5)

Photography by Ernst Haas. (3/5)

Photography by Ernst Haas. (4/5)

Magdalena Jetelova, Land Art Installation in Iceland, 1992. (5/5)

Design as Responsibility

The temporality of this type of intervention demands a clear position: we do not build to discard. From the first sketch, the project was conceived with reuse in mind. All elements—from construction to furniture—were selected for their capacity to persist beyond the event. We see this not as an added value, but as a baseline for working today.

The envelope was built using black-painted particle board, which will be disassembled and repurposed in future editions. The curved partitions, made of fair carpeting, will be transformed into new objects. Every material decision was guided by longevity, adaptability, and traceability.

This would not have been possible without the support of collaborators who share this vision. We worked with national partners from the Foro de Marcas Renombradas Españolas—Actiu, Cosentino, Crevin, Fama, Joquer, Lladró, Ondarreta, and Simon—whose generosity allowed us to construct a palette of dark, natural tones that can be easily reintegrated into future contexts. Lighting design support by Anoche and visual identity by Clase completed the proposal, bringing cohesion and atmosphere to a space that, although ephemeral, was built to endure.