Skin of Architecture: Mirror

Source: pcf-p.com

John Hancock Tower, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 1976 designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners

The extreme disparity in size between the tower and the church was the central predicament we faced. ....several aspects of the tower's design may be cited as essential: First, the attenuated rhomboid plan-form emphasizes the planar and minimizes the volumetric presences of the building. Second, placement of the rhomboid diagonally on the site, with its narrow edge adjacent to the church, effectively disembodies the tower as seen from the square. Third, notches bisecting the end walls accentuate the weightless verticality of these planes and make legible the tower's nonrectangular geometry. .... Fifth, the tower's uniformly gridded and reflective surface, stripped of all elements that might suggest a third dimension, mutes the obtrusiveness of its enormous bulk and defers in all respects to the rich sculptural qualities of its much smaller neighbor. With regard to this latter aspect, it should especially be noted that the three-story-high lobby at the base of the tower is sheathed in the same manner as all other floors; had the monumental scale of this space been directly expressed or exposed to view from the outside, it surely would have upset the delicate balance in the dialogue between church and tower. -- architect's web site

Source: predock.com

Mandell Weiss Forum and La Jolla Playhouse , University of California at San Diego, San Diego, California, USA, 1991 designed by Antoine Predock Architect

Going to the theater should be a ritual, a ceremony.  The approach to this building is a gift to the audience - an experience heightened by the eucalyptus grove that defines the site. 

In the center of the grove was a clearing that became the site for the building and its 270-foot-long, 13-foot-high mirrored foreground wall.  The mirror is detached from the theater; it is a floating plane poised against the eucalyptus grove.  When theater goers arrive they see their individual and collective reflections in this mirror, and they smell the aromatic eucalyptus leaves.  The sounds of dry leaves and gravel underfoot also charge the arrival.  There is a true sense of expectation. -- architect's web site

Source: Keith Paisley archdaily.com

Kielder Belvedere, Northumberland, Pennsylvania, USA, 1999 designed by Softroom

On approach from the park, two etched-steel mirror walls reflect the forest and flank a doorway set beneath a richly-coloured glass canopy. The triangular shelter is entered via its apex, through an apparently very thick wall.  The curve of the door suggests what lies beyond; a golden circular chamber, lit by soft daylight filtering through a coloured skylight. -- ArchDaily

Source: Thomas Lenden archdaily.com

Pavilion for an Artist, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2008 designed by DHL Architecture

From the outside, the building is camouflaged with mirrors; it reflects the surroundings negating its own existence. Strange and impenetrable to the unaware, only the owner knows its secrets. The large cabinet doors are almost invisible and the entrance must be discovered. -- ArchDaily

Source: Laura Stamer archdaily.com

Mirror House, Copenhagen, Denmark designed by MLRP

Funhouse mirrors are mounted on the gabled ends of this playground pavilion in Copenhagen, as well as behind the doors. This engages a play with perspective, reflection and tranformation. Instead of a typical closed gable facade, the mirrored gables creates a sympathetic transition between built and landscape and reflects the surrounding park, playground and activity. -- ArchDaily 

Source: Patrick Bingham Hall archdaily.com

Cairns Botanic Gardens Visitors Centre, Cairns, Australia, 2011 designed by Charles Wright Architects

.... a mirrored facade that literally reflects the surrounding gardens.  The architects’ describe it as having a “visual effect similar to the suit as worn by the alien hunter in the original 1987 Predator film.” The camouflaged gateway houses a café terrace, information and exhibition space, and offices for the council staff. It activates the pedestrian promenade and links the gardens with the Arts Centre, while serving as a cool and dry zone all year round for tourists visiting the often hot and wet environment of the tropical gardens. -- ArchDaily

Source: John Lewis Marshall archdaily.com

Garden studio, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2012 designed by CC-Studio

By placing mirrored planes the visual depth of the garden was enhanced to look deeper. Also the geometry of the volume was specially tailored to play with the perspective lines and to have no vertical surfaces parallel to the house but at an angle to have a more continuous flow. This geometry was tested and adjusted on site using a line mock-up first before finalizing the design. -- ArchDaily

Source: Paul Archer Design archdaily.com

Green Orchard, Gloucestershire, UK designed by Paul Archer Design

The exterior is clad in an intelligent skin of bespoke full-height panels, which are electronically motorised to slide open fully. The panels are highly insulated and allow the occupants to control and vary the thermal performance of the house depending on the time of the day and year. An aluminium coating reflects the surrounding gardens ensuring that the house recedes into its setting. -- ArchDaily

Source: Julien Lanoo archdaily.com

Gymnasium and Town Hall Esplanade, Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, Chelles, France, 2012 designed by LAN Architecture

Here, we had to escape from the imagery related to sports facilities to implement an object which «lets us see» a fragmenting urban kaleidoscope, diffracting and reflecting the image of the surrounding buildings in order to respond with a new, more sensitive vision. To this end, the facade is composed of two layers, the first (the glass) reflecting and letting in light, and the second (the copper), coloring and magnifying the reflection, providing protection from glass impacts. -- ArchDaily

Source: Holzer Kobler Architekturen archdaily.com

PALÄON, Schöningen, Germany, 2013 designed by Holzer Kobler Architekturen

The metallic skin of the PALÄON mirrors the meadows and forests that surround it as well as the movements of the clouds in the sky passing by. Through its archaic form, the research and experience center becomes one with its surroundings. -- ArchDaily

Source: Jeroen Musch archdaily.com

Mirror House, De Eenvoud, Almere, The Netherlands, 2013 designed by Johan Selbing + Anouk Vogel

The Mirror House is a private villa with a facade consisting entirely of reflective glass, which acts as a camouflage and an obstruction of the view of its  interior. The floorplan has been designed to be as compact as possible, with the possibility to adapt to different lifestyles. -- ArchDaily

Read an article from Architectural Record

Source: PROJEKTSTUDIO archdaily.com

Reconstruction of Building Ostrava-Svinov, Ostrava-Svinov, Peterkova, 721 00 Ostrava-Svinov, Czech Republic, 2013 designed by PROJEKTSTUDIO

The facade of the house is made of composite panels in the mirror – chrome color treatment, which reflects current hundred-year old distillery. With this “masking” the designed object becomes invisible – like the UFO that suddenly landed on the ground and does not want be revealed. -- ArchDaily

Source: Cassandra Hryniw archdaily.com

Public Art Sculpture Mirage, Toronto, Canada, 2012 designed by Paul Raff Studio

Suspended overhead of pedestrians, large scale mirror-like surfaces create an illusory appearance, which bends light rays to produce a displaced image much like a mirage. The mirage is made up of 57 reflective polished stainless steel panels fastened to the underside of the overpass. -- ArchDaily

Source: Rodrigo Jorge archdaily.com

[DES]dobrar Memorial, Curitiba, Brazil designed by Aleph Zero + Juliano Monteiro

.... the [DES]dobrar Memorial is a space composed by reflective elements which is therefore a cloudy limited space: in, out, far and near, front, back, unique, multiple, real reflection. An important element of the project is one that activates and gives meaning to the objects: the user / observer. Unlike a mere passive spectator, is the observer who composes the piece through its position and its motion in space. Such movement is yet ‘reflected’ by objects that “dance” as the passage of passersby and accuses them of being they, too, actors in a multiple reality, dynamic and interconnected. -- ArchDaily

Source: Steven King archdaily.com

Lucid Stead: A “Disappearing” Cabin of Mirrors, Joshua Tree, California, USA designed by Phillip K Smith III

....an optical illusion/installation that modifies an abandoned 70-year-old homestead with mirrors in order to make it appear transparent. The cabin was also fitted with LED lighting to “extract the distilled experience of how light changes over time — how a mountain can be blue, red, brown, white, purple, and black all in one day.” As Smith stated, the project is about light, shadow, and tapping into the quiet of the desert. Check out more images and a video of the cabin after the break! -- ArchDaily

Source: Raymond Chow archdaily.com

Borden Park Pavilion, Edmonton, AB, Canada, 2014 designed by gh3

From the outside, the pavilion is clad with triangulated, highly reflective glass panels, effectively dissolving into its surroundings. -- ArchDaily

Source: Kate Bowe O’Brien archdaily.com

West Limerick Children’s Centre, Newcastle West, Co. Limerick, Ireland, 2014 designed by SATA

Above the perimeter glazing and up to parapet level, the polished aluminium façade establishes a dialogue between viewer and surroundings by juxtaposing transient reflections of the sky with the natural skies above. -- ArchDaily

Source: Oskar Da Riz archdaily.com

The Mirror Houses, Tirol, Bolzano, Italy, 2014 designed by Peter Pichler Architecture

The projects initial volume is split in 2 units that are slightly shifted in height and length in order to loosening the entire structure and articulating each unit.

Mirrored glass on the west facade borders the garden of the client with the units and catches the surrounding panorama while making the units almost invisible. The mirrored glass is laminated with an UV coating preventing birds collision. -- ArchDaily

Source: wikipedia.org

Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, Chicago, Illinois, USA by Anish Kapoor

The 110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect Chicago’s famous skyline and the clouds above. A 12-foot-high arch provides a "gate" to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture, inviting visitors to touch its mirror-like surface and see their image reflected back from a variety of perspectives. 

Inspired by liquid mercury, the sculpture is among the largest of its kind in the world, measuring 66-feet long by 33-feet high.  -- official web site

Source: publicartfund.org

Sky Mirror Rockefeller Center, New York City, New York, USA by Anish Kapoor

Anish Kapoor's Sky Mirror is a breathtaking, 35-foot-diameter concave mirror made of polished stainless steel. Standing nearly three stories tall at the Fifth Avenue entrance to the Channel Gardens at Rockefeller Center, Sky Mirror offers a dazzling experience of light and architecture, presenting viewers with a vivid inversion of the skyline featuring the historic landmark building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. -- Public Art Fund

RockGiant (La Perrière) by Arik Levy

....it’s an enormous piece of mirror-polished stainless steel, faceted to look like a giant rock. From some angles, it blends into the landscape seamless as it reflects its surroundings; from other angles, it boldly stands out with its obviously manmade origins.  -- Jeannie Jeannie

Source: Tom Van Eynde icaboston.org

Czech Modernism Mirrored and Reflected Infinitely, 2005. by Josiah McElheny. Handblown mirrored glass, transparent and industrial mirror, chrome metal laminate, wood, electric lighting. 30 1/2 x 18 1/2 x 56 1/2 in. The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston.

In McElheny’s diverse body of work, the infinite crops up again and again: from intricate patterns in glass, such as the dizzying spirals that grace a set of handblown plates, to the endless reflection of mirrored surfaces, as seen in works like Czech Modernism Mirrored and Reflected Infinitely. -- ICA Boston

Source: SPEECH architectural office archdaily

Mirrored “Mobius Strip”, Milan, Italy, 2015 by Sergei Tchoban

Russian architects Sergei Tchoban (SPEECH architectural office), Sergey Kuznetsov, and Agniya Sterligova are featuring the “Living Line” sculpture at this year’s Milan Design Week. Created for a central part of the University of Milan’s main courtyard, which occupies the Ca ‘Granda complex of 15th century Renaissance buildings, the mirrored plexiglass “Mobius strip” aims to reflect the exhibition’s theme “Energy for Life.” -- ArchDaily