Annabel Karim Kassar Architects: Cabinet de Curiosités

HONOR COURTYARD, UNIVERSITY OF MILAN - The installation is a multi-layered labyrinth consisting of a series of staircases and viewing platforms, revealing maps, decorative carvings and hidden objects, where the visitor is challenged to reimagine their place in the natural order.

Designed by Annabel Karim Kassar, founder of AKK Architects, the work is made from, plywood and honeycomb acrylic panels. Kassar explains that the installation was inspired by the 16th-century Cabinet of Curiosities “when, prompted by the scientific discoveries of the time, people collected random objects from the natural world to display them in Wunderkammer.”

In the same way, her microarchitecture invites viewers to take part, exploring a complex geometric space from different angles and heights, to discover for themselves the visual and emotional patterns that emerge from seeming randomness.