SOLAR IMPRINT

Turmeric-dyed light-sensitive textile, concrete footings, variable dimensions, realized at the Center for Spatial Cosmology, HCU Hamburg, 2026.

“Solar Imprint” is an experimental pavilion that uses sunlight not only to illuminate architectural space, but as an active force in its formation. Its textile skin is dyed with turmeric, a natural pigment whose intense yellow color gradually fades when exposed to sunlight. Architecture thus becomes a light-sensitive surface on which the changing course and intensity of the sun leave material traces. As sunlight moves across the pavilion, differently exposed areas of the textile transform at different speeds. Shadows cast by folds, overlaps and structural elements temporarily protect parts of the fabric, while exposed surfaces slowly lose their color. Over the duration of the installation, these differences accumulate into a spatial image of solar exposure: the pavilion becomes, in a literal sense, a photograph of itself. Rather than understanding the sun as an external environmental condition to be controlled through architecture, “Solar Imprint” incorporates it as a co-producer of the work. The structure is therefore never visually fixed, but continuously rewritten through the interaction of light, material and time.

Direction: Michael Hirschbichler In collaboration with: Elizabeth Gallón Droste, Jeanne Astrup-Chauvaux, Can Grothmann, Naima Mora, Mateo Chacón Pino, Flavio Mancuso, Rosa Cors, Emelie Mecklenburg

Students of the studio SOLARIS at the Center for Spatial Cosmology