Cocoon (BKF + H300) | Estudio Normal

Remember the scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind when people looked up and marveled at the spaceship as it landed and music was the common language of communication? The Buenos Aires, Argentina–based architect and designer offers a similar experience with his nine-story sculpture constructed with 300 reproductions of the iconic BKF, or as otherwise known worldwide “butterfly,” chair. In Buenos Aires in 1940 three architects — Bonet, Kurchan and Ferrari — designed the original chair, which was added to MoMA's permanent collection a year later. The chair was quickly adopted by popular culture but its true success came through the reproduction of copycats and knock off chairs that spread among projects of the mid-century modern style. Thus the butterfly overtook the BKF and the prominent work of Argentinian design was invisibilized within popular culture. Huberman has reclaimed the narrative, naming his work Cocoon (BKF+H300) and using the reproductions to complete a structural irony of the mythological origin of a chair that was born out of a cocoon. The stunning architecture, which includes a silky “skin” made of window shade-type material, offers shade during the day and illumination at night. Huberman, known for transforming everyday objects such as clothespins into site-specific public art, combines his experimental design practice Estudio Normal with his work as director of Galería Monoambiente, the first space in Buenos Aires dedicated to experimental architecture and design.