Translucent Home, 2008: Interventions at 914 Whitesboro Street 1998-2008

Ann Reichlin

My work explores the structure and space of houses and rooms as a metaphor for fragility, transience and memory. We tend to think of houses as permanent, when in fact they are in constant state of flux. I am fascinated by what is revealed by this state of incompletion and potential.

Translucent Home is part of a ten-year project I began in 1998 when I was a resident at Sculpture Space. My third intervention on the same house site,Translucent Home embodies the idea of transformation. In 1998, I built Insert, a large stainless steel wall penetrating the abandoned house at 914 Whitesboro Street. In 2001, I created Solitary View, an exploration of the inside of the house. By 2006, the house became structurally unstable and was demolished. The stone foundation was retained for Translucent Home. 

Mimicking the size and volume of the demolished house, Translucent Home is built in relationship to its foundation from steel, reinforcement rod and steel lath. As the translucent mass of the center interacts with the light, Translucent Home will at times seem solid, at other times fragmented, sometimes dense, sometimes hollow. Translucent Home was completed in October 2008. The opening reception will be April 22 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Site tours will be from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m.

Translucent Home is sited on Sculpture Space grounds in Utica, NY. Architectural Consultants are Ali Yapicioglu, AIA and Rick Hauser, AIA of In.Site: Architecture. Steel fabrication by JCA of Utica with assistance and crane-work from Gauthier Fabricating. This project is in part made possible with support from Sculpture Space, funding received in partnership with GroWest from the “Art Creating Community Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, administered by the Stanley Center for the Arts, private donations and advice from Creative Time’s Open Door program. Ann Reichlin is a 2008 fellow and 2000 fellow in the Category of Architecture/Environmental Structures from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Translucent Home was featured in NYFA Current in October/November 2008.