(1:1) One to One

What we call the 1:1 is a full-scale building and it’s a way for visitors to have a direct experience of Pawson space. It’s the first time I’ve worked in mosaic. My architecture is designed around the people who use it. It’s about making places where people feel good. So, I hope people feel good in this space.

John Pawson

Admired for the clarity and simplicity of his work, John Pawson has been hailed as one of the leading proponents of minimalist architecture of the past decades. To date, his buildings have included the Neuendorf House on Majorca, the Abbey of Our Lady of Nový Dvůr, the Sackler Crossing footbridge in London’s Kew Gardens, and The Jaffa Hotel & Residences near Tel Aviv.

He holds a very special place in the life of the Bisazza Foundation, due to the fact that its inaugural temporary exhibition in 2012 was devoted to his work. Entitled Plain Space. Architecture and Design, it stretched over 1,000 sq m and constituted his very first Italian retrospective. “It’s a pleasure to be showing my work in Italy and especially in Vicenza, which is an area so strongly associated with Palladio,” enthused Pawson at the time. “His legacy is a formidable body of work and ideas.”

A lasting remnant of that show is the site-specific, 1:1 (One to One) – an oval-shaped structure covered with thousands of tiny glass mosaic tiles, which gradate from opal white to various shades of grey. “For me,” explains Pawson, “it was a way of changing the perception of a three-dimensional shape. And then I wanted to investigate a full color palette, from beginning to end.” Inside, a blade of light enters through a slit in the ceiling, creating a serene, meditative atmosphere.