Benjamin Reynolds

Benjamin Reynolds is the founder of Pa.LaC.E, a practice based between London and Basel. He convenes High Holdings (ADS12) at the Royal College of Art, a framework to examine the gradual estrangement of the world via colossal pools of information.

Benjamin Reynolds founded Pa.LaC.E, a practice that explores spatial and temporal breadths of history and geography to conceive of environments and phenomena that are often cartographic, virtual and built. Often their work addresses collaborative estrangement, and deprival as a productive strategy.

Reynolds received a diploma with honours from the Architectural Association, London and was an art fellow at the Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht.

Pa.LaC.E’s first major monograph—Paris Hermitage—was released in early 2017 with Cooperative Editions (New York), and their second major publication—Zenith Boil—is slated for release in 2022.

Reynolds currently convenes High Holdings (ADS12) at the Royal College of Art, London and led a diploma class for four years at the Architectural Association, London.

School, Centre or Area

School of Architecture

Expertise

Future cities

Pa.LaC.E, Pastoral Complex. 2021. Multiple materials. 1600 x 250 x 350 cm. The space is the reconstruction of hypoxic conditions of a single contour-line along the sub-alpine peak “Culan” in the Diablerets Massif at 2,250. m.a.s.l., where 14.3 % of oxygen is available. La Becque, Canton Vaud, Switzerland.
Pa.LaC.E, Pastoral Complex. 2021. Multiple materials. 1600 x 250 x 350 cm. Pastoral Complex recreates a walk along a contour, by reducing the oxygen content of the space. It is an exploration on medical climatology—going to places to feel better—paying particular attention to the curious typological reversibility of the hotel>/<hospital. Pastoral Complex’s medico-domestic sense echos the short-lived airbathing movement of the 19th century. La Becque, Canton Vaud, Switzerland.
Pa.LaC.E, Hypoxic Air Pond (Scythe One). From the project “Pastoral Complex”, 2021, Multiple materials, 1600 x 250 x 350 cm. Nitrogen escapes from this “air pond” to lower the oxygen content of the Pastoral Complex. La Becque, Canton Vaud, Switzerland.
Pa.LaC.E, Melgroube. From the project “Highest Good”. 2019. Cardboard, flour, pigment, steel, pine. 470 x 270 x 45 cm. A reconstruction of the ceiling frieze of the Melgroube, a public building for trading European flour on the Neuer Markt, VIenna from the 14th C. From the solo exhibition “Highest Good” at MAGAZIN gallery, Vienna, AT.
Pa.LaC.E, “In Ballast”. 2020. Velvet, soap, sand, rhine river pebbles, ink, pine, steel cables, acrylic paint. 300 x 180 x 450 cm. A lavoir (washhouse) whose roof—a large ballast tank of a ship—is formed from wing-shaped veneers washed in the Rhine. Austellungraum Klingental, Basel.
Pa.LaC.E, Cover. 2016. From the project “Paris Hermitage”. Offset press. 29.7 x 21 cm. Pa.LaC.E’s monograph co-published with Collaborative Editions (N.Weltyk), New York.
Pa.LaC.E, Lung Three and Four. 2021. From the project “Zenith Boil”. Ceramic, rubber. 67.5 x 68 cm. A volume used to distribute hot air to displace cold air for capturing turbulence in imagery.
Pa.LaC.E, Five Essays, From the project “Dom Gross”, 2017 - 2019, Limited edition of five, hand-bound boxes. Laying to rest the identity and ideas of Dom Gross, a surrogate identity that turned doubts into works. Dom Gross was the eponymous hero of an architectural class that took place at the Institute of Theory of Architecture and Philosophy of Technics at the Vienna University of Technology between 2017 and 2019. The collection is forwarded with “Vastly Modern” by philosopher and writer Vera Bühlmann. Each edition encases a keepsake, such as an ampoule of Dom’s anti- wrinkle concentrate. The special edition is printed and hand-bound in Vienna.
Pa.LaC.E, G— —R (Geodesic Rectangle), 2016, nanometer light-absorbing optical film, steel, 160 x 70 cm. Table from a spheroid whose major axis equals the draught of Japanese tanker “Seawise Giant”. From a solo exhibition at Jørn Utzon’s Can Lis, Mallorca, ES. Invited by the Danish Art Foundation.
Pa.LaC.E, Space (Interference + Carving), From the project “Paris Hermitage”, 2015, (a), DIN A4 Inkjet (b), Marl Stone (c), 19:37mins, (a), 29.7 x 21cm (b), 21 x 15 x 22cm (c) HD Image. A brief sensorial experience with material across time. An architect forming space with a chisel, where the stone’s material is equal to the interference of itself in code. Exhibited at Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, NL.

More information

Research interests

Recent work has explored the phenomena of pulverization as the reinvention of contemporary life-rhythms with projects such as Paris Hermitage, as well as the social and bodily effects of oxygen deprivation (hypoxia) in space with the recently built project Pastoral Complex.

Through the environment High Holdings, Pa.LaC.E is interested in responding to the gradual estrangement of the world around us by examining the therapeutic, spiritual and technical qualities of architecture. High Holdings operates by (re-)developing sensibilities within the vast amounts of information that our civilisation is giving birth to.

Current and research projects

Azumi and Iori (2022). It centers on the development of a family house around the burden of persistent rituals in the outskirts of Kyoto.

Zenith Boil (2022). Zenith Boil is an exploration of the architectural image when subjected to an atmosphere, offering an alternate system
of ordering spaces beyond function or scale. Published as a monograph by Cooperative Editions, New York.

Pastoral Complex (2021). Pastoral Complex comprises a drawing room that simulates the conditions of a single contour line along the sub-alpine peak Le Culan in Switzerland, where only 14.3% of oxygen is available. The project learns from the short-lived movement in the 19th century of “compressed air-bathing”, echoing the days when urbanites sought “healthful” alpine environments, particularly those around Lake Geneva. It expands the pre-existing cultural imagination of the Vaud Riviera concerning “medical climatology”, or the notion of health tourism. With a contribution by poet Daisy Lafarge.

Dom Gross (2018-21). The publication entails five essays by Pa.LaC.E: Success, Gearing, Juvenilia, Levitation and No Ghost with a foreword by Vera Buehlmann.

Crevasses (2017). The project works on the commission to find the center of gravity of a library consistent of some 12,000 titles. Paris Hermitage (2016). Paris Hermitage is

a space that explores the phenomena of pulverization and suggests a reinvention of our contemporary life-rhythms. The building is published as a monograph by Cooperative Editions, New York.

Awards

Reynolds won the 50th annual Shinkenchiku/ Central Glass Award in Tokyo, among other international prizes. His work has been previously shown at the ICA (UK), Van Abbemuseum (NL), the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB), the Boston Centre for the Arts (US), Basis voor Actuele Kunst – BAK (The Netherlands) and the Architecture Foundation in London.

External collaborations and activities

Reynolds has been an artist-in-residence at La Becque in Switzerland, the OMI International Center for The Arts in New York and the Andreas Züst Library in Switzerland, and has developed projects in the context of institutions such as the Koneen Säätiö Foundation in Finland.

His work has been published widely including Volume (Amsterdam), EP (Sternberg Press), Ecocore (London), ED (Los Angeles) and Spéciale’Z (Paris). His work lives in many esteemed private collections and the Permanent Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has lectured at Columbia University in New York, ETH Zürich D-ARCH, UdK Berlin and the Architectural Association in London.