The creator of the Palm Springs Mirror House has built a new one in a different city

By
Casey Dolan
-

Doug Aitken’s Mirror House was one of, if not the most popular art installation in 2017’s Desert X that took place in Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley. The mirrored home, named “Mirage,” overlooked Palm Springs and quickly became the spot to take pics for the ‘Gram and could still be if Palm Springs wasn’t so Palm Springs. Now, Aitken is back with a new mirrored home – which will be on display now through February in a different part of the country.

“Mirage Detroit” is a similar structure to the Palm Springs Mirror House – but, this time around Aitken’s creation is being housed inside an old bank in the city, which makes sense seeing as it’s freakin’ cold in Michigan in the winter.

“I wanted something you could get lost in,” Aitken said during a recent tour of the space (via Detroit Free Press). “It’s a very simple structure, but the complexity is in what you see and what you discover. It’s not so much the form. It’s a plywood floor and mirrored walls, but we try to be creative in how we build it.”

View this post on Instagram

@designboom: 'Inside the historic former State Savings Bank in downtown Detroit, artist Doug Aitken sets an immersive, mirrored installation that reflects the environment in which it is situated, thus activating this seminal site. Opened to the public on October 10, 2018, MIRAGE DETROIT takes the form of a one-story, American suburban house entirely clad in a mirrored façade and internally housing a labyrinth of rooms and halls. On the ground, visitors traverse a terrain of river rocks and earth in order to reach the structure, beckoning them to enter the artwork.⠀ ⠀ With every surface and detail of the sculpture mirrored, the contrast between aged architectural details, marble flooring and earth and stone surfaces is extreme. Furthermore, Aitken has created MIRAGE DETROIT as a continually changing experience, an ever-shifting landscape that marries the organic and inorganic, reflects the industrial past of the site, and poses an architectural idea.⠀ ⠀ The structure — a seemingly ordinary suburban dwelling devoid of its inhabitants — now functions in response to its environment. its doors and windows have been peeled away to generate a fluid relationship with the surrounding landscape, framing and distort the world outside of it. The building is devoid of natural light and its windows darkened. Carefully choreographed white light — a scheme created in collaboration with experimental lighting designer Andi Watson — slowly meanders across the interior, gradually shifting the reflections on MIRAGE DETROIT'S surface.' – Nina Azzarello⠀ ⠀ Photo by @lance.gerber⠀ ⠀ @dougaitkenworkshop #dougaitken #librarystreetcollective #miragedetroit @andiwatsondesign⠀

A post shared by Library Street Collective (@librarystreetcollective) on

You can check out more about the installation at Mirage Detroit’s website.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR