Three stories high, house-Madrid will be constructed during Madrid Abierto over a period of ten days in an public space in Madrid.

Two groups of builders will simultaneosly construct and de-construct the two identical shells of house-Madrid during the ten days. 6,3 meters high shells will be built out of lightweight blocks up to third floor level and juxtaposed with each other in rotational symmetry. The process will be synchronized so that the construction and de-construction is choreographed sequentially: the opposite segments of the two shells will slowly move around each other until house-Madrid is completed. Two separate houses will appear on the same spot at the same time.

house-Madrid becomes a structure of constant movement as walls appear and disappear, its spatiality constantly changing and unstable. This will raise questions about the permanence of architectural structures, their relationship to their surroundings, and the nature of housing. Architecture is re-defined as what might consider to be a permanent structure becomes animated and temporary.

As a work of collaboration, house-Madrid reveals the process, the labour and skill of building as a visible experience. The construction of the monumental becomes an event, a visible and spatial experience of a process in flux rather than the presentation of a finished architectural structure.

The artwork explores the relationship between the temporary and the permanent in architecture as well as investigating the boundaries between process, artwork and documentation.

house-Madrid will be recorded using a unique process. Three specially constructed cameras will be positioned strategically around the sculpture. The photographic plates will be exposed for the duration to produce time lapsed black and white photographs. The resulting large-scale photographs will eventually reveal the only complete view of the two separate houses, the overlaid shells. Additionally, a time-lapse video and 16mm movie will be made.