‘Color Block No. 2’ at the Wexner Center for the Arts
Outpost Office Takes Over the Wexner Center
Photo: Leonid Furmansky
Outpost Office, the practice founded by architects and educators Ashley Bigham and Erik Herrmann, have installed Color Block No. 2 at various in-between spaces both outside and within the Wexner Center for the Arts, the building on the Ohio State University campus designed by Peter Eisenman and Richard Trott in the mid-1980s.
It was 1983, to be precise, when the submission by Eisenman/Robertson Architects and Trott & Bean Architects won the competition for what was then called the Ohio State University Center for the Visual Arts. The brief included spaces for exhibition, research, and teaching, all focused on experimentation and vanguard artistic activities. The jury, headed by Henry Cobb, felt the winning design — highlighted, as it was, by rebuilt fragments of the university's old Armory, which was demolished in 1959 following a fire, and a gridded armature that defines a circulation spine cutting across the site — was equally experimental and vanguard; it is notably considered one of the first built examples of Deconstructivist architecture.
Since its inauguration in 1989, the Wexner Center for the Arts — affectionately called the Wex — has maintained its commitment to experimentation balanced by a critical appreciation of the past through various exhibitions, performances, screenings, educational programs, artist residencies, and publications. Within this lineage is Color Block No. 2, which was installed in November 2023 and is on display from until April 2025. The installation occupies four places in and around the Wex, both contrasting with and extending the qualities of the original building. Take a visual tour through Outpost Office's installation.
Color Block No. 2 consists of four large-scale, modular furniture units composed of what Bigham and Herrmann describe as “colorful proto-architectural elements like columns, plinths and walls.” (Photo: Leonid Furmansky)
Two of the four units are installed outside, pointing toward them being made with Duraply, a sustainably-produced plywood that is suitable for outdoor furniture (the interior pieces are made from the same product). All of the units are finished with acrylic latex paint and vinyl accents that make them bold counterpoints to the architecture. (Photo: Leonid Furmansky)
The units inside are found by the main entrance, including this one at the lobby, sitting inside a small pocket of space between the stair and the elevator, and next to one of the building's ironic beams that clearly is not structural. (Photo: Leonid Furmansky)
The gridded beams and columns that visitors encounter at the Wex becomes the main graphic accent of Color Block No. 2, with + signs laid on a grid atop the benches and posts regardless of their angle and position. (Photo: Leonid Furmansky)
The other interior piece is located downstairs, visible from the upper lobby and while descending the stair. (Photo: Leonid Furmansky)
It sits next to the stair but also Eisenman's infamous fake column that stops ten feet short of the floor. (Photo: Leonid Furmansky)
Like the other three pieces, this one functions as a place to sit, “encouraging rest, collaboration, socializing, and informal learning,” per Outpost Office, and perhaps as a place to enjoy a coffee from the café. (Photo: Leonid Furmansky)
Underlying the plan of the Wex is a grid set at an angle to the OSU campus's grid. Accordingly, Bigham and Herrmann, who both teach at OSU's Knowlton School of Architecture, have inserted oversized angled shims that act like structural supports for the beams and other objects that comprise the installations. (Photo: Leonid Furmansky)
Color Block No. 2 was curated by Kelly Kivland and was commissioned by the Wex under executive director Gaëtane Verna, seen here. (Photo: Leonid Furmansky)
