Tallinn’s Resonance pavilion explores affordable luxury

The winning “Resonance” pavilion at this year’s Tallinn Architecture Biennale explores the idea of affordable luxury through an installation focused on sound. ERR carries Liina Soosaar’s review, which first appeared in Sirp.

The biennale asks, “How much does it cost?” The question comes as construction costs are rising, Soosaar writes. Architecture’s price is complex: value depends on context, function, location, timing and many other factors. A building can involve dozens or even hundreds of people, from developers and builders to architects, project managers and users, each with different priorities. Cost tables, however, do not capture the experience or quality of a space.

The installation competition did not address those wider complexities directly. Its brief sought a work that embodied “affordable luxury”: richness within limited means, a rethinking of luxury and an inventive approach to cost. Biennale pavilions are often timber structures that demonstrate the material’s range, and their public locations can draw attention from passers-by as well as international media.

“Resonance,” designed by Cheng Hao Chung and Zhang Jie of Aru Ma-Architects, with Cui Jiakai and Matteo Minnicelli of the Tokyo and Shanghai team, stands on a green space in front of the Architecture Museum. The site is visible to cruise passengers and people travelling between Tallinn and Helsinki.

The pavilion resembles an airy house of cards, formed from plywood sheets. Soosaar describes it as visually pleasing, bright, light and inviting against the increasingly dense backdrop of the Rotermanni district, including a new office building.

The installation’s bent plywood panels suggest the reflection of sound. Its accompanying text describes an acoustic ambition: to create a quiet, courtyard-like space beside the museum, offering a pause in a busy, noisy traffic junction. But visitors find the walls sparse and translucent, and they do not block out the noise.