Grotto - Callum Morton

Following in his fathers footsteps Morton (Montreal, 1965) first studied architecture and then moved to the visual arts. Architecture plays a prominent role in his oeuvre, but is not the actual theme of his work. Morton first became known for his fabrication of two-dimensional plans of archetypical forms of modernist architecture, which he transforms into models, giving the buildings a completely new, banal function. For example, he changed (at least on paper), the Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht into a branch of ToysRUs, made Casa Malaparte in Capri into a Spizzico fast-food restaurant and turned Farnsworth House in Illinois into a 7/11. In Tilburg Morton was commissioned to redesign a pavilion for De Oude Warande park which was originally built in 1712 by the German prince Wilhelm von Hessen-Kassel. If the Baroque design of the garden was to be respected, it had to be at the central point of the park, the only spot from where the star-shaped pattern of the paths can be seen. Morton designed an invisible pavilion. The exterior is not immediately apparent because it is a mirror. Grotto is a Baroque folly, a screen, a cave, a grave and a functional pavilion. It will remain open until 2014.