From 4 September 1999 onwards, the Main Room of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAl), with a floor-area of 1000 m2 and a height of 9 metres, will be taken over by the office Morphosis from Los Angeles, the driving force behind which is the architect Thorn Mayne. For Morphosis the architecture of every building must deal specifically with local, historical and cultural conditions. The 'silent collisions' between all these different conditions generate the complexity and meaning of the architecture.
In line with this philosophy, an enormous, partly folding installation will engage in a confrontation with the building by Jo Coenen.
The installation conveys the (ideas about) architecture of Morphosis in a better way than would have been possible in a traditional exhibition with models, texts, drawings, and photographs. Such an exhibition, no matter how beautiful, offers no emotional experience of space. The installation by Thorn Mayne not only ensures such an experience; it also highlights an awareness of this emotional influence. The atmosphere, just like the space, is slowly transformed - from a big tall hall with daylight and a view of the water into a closed box with projection screens as the only light source.
In addition to this impressive experience, the visitor also has the opportunity to study the work of the office in a more traditional way. More than 60 beautiful models, 120 original drawings and many computer studies will be on show on the lower level.

Installation
On entering the NAI, the regular visitor will immediately realize that there is something strange going on. Where normally there is a wall of opaque glass, there is now an opening through which one can enter the Main Hall. A slightly inclined ramp leads to a snow-white platform surrounded by white screens spanning between aluminium frames. Standing on the platform, the visitor becomes aware that the space is gradually changing. It takes twenty minutes for the metamorphosis to run its course: from an open space with a view of the water outside the NAI to a space cut by fantastic white forms, and finally to a closed dark box. At this final stage of the transformation there is a 10-minute series of computer projections on the moving screens showing the most recent projects by Morphosis. After this the space gradually opens up again. The Main Room will undergo this transformation around 1000 times over the course of the exhibition.
At any time during the whole cycle, the visitor can leave the platform and descend to the lower level of the Main Room. Thom Mayne considers this space a the back-stage area behind the continuous show on the platform. All the installation equipment is exposed here and is visible beside models, drawings, photographs and texts on 28 projects by Morphosis. Heavy timber walls serve, literally and figuratively, to support the exhibition. Three completely servo-assisted electrical motors with transmission boxes power the movable elements. An ingenious system of stafic and moving steel cables combined with revolving cogs and ballast transfer the forces and 'fold' the space. The installation is made of thousands of metres of pinewood, 1500 metres of aluminium sections, 600 square metres of cotton fabric, 1000 square metres of MDF and more than 10,000 screws and bolts.

LA School
Michael Rotondi and Thom Mayne (1944) set up Morphosis in 1971. Their partnership continued until 1992 and since then Thom Mayne has been the driving force behind the office. Together with architect Eric Owen Moss, they belong to the second generation of the so-called LA School, the undisputed founder of which was Prank Gehry in the 1970s. An exhibition of work by Gehry will go on show in the Balcony Room of the NAI on September 11, 1999. The work of the LA School is characterized by its inventive use of basic industrial materials, a formal love of fragmentation and complexity, and carefully crafted details. The architects of the LA School are closely linked to Los Angeles, the city that unites them: dynamic, extravagant, and lacking in history. The instability of this city, with the ever-present threat of unpredictable natural disaster (earthquake), is expressed in an experimental architecture that feigns no certainties.
Thom Mayne helped to set up Sci-Arc (Southern California Institute for Architecture) in Los Angeles, and for years he taught at the school. The aim of Sci-Arc was to produce architects who were primarily artists. The artistic approach to architecture typical of the LA School was expressed by Gehry when he said: "I think that artistic expression fuels our collective soul, and it is not simply a matter of innovation or finding answers to dire social problems."