For Vienna Contemporary 2017, a temporary teahouse was created on behalf of C/O Vienna Magazine as a retreat from the hectic everyday life of the art fair. The small installation creates a space for conversation, concentration and closeness – an intimate counterpoint to the open, loud and heavily frequented fair environment.
 

The teahouse is conceived as an archaic figure: a simple timber house on black stilts, clad externally in grey cardboard shingles, warm, calm and concentrated inside. Through the low-set opening, visitors consciously enter the space in a stooped posture; inside, the sense of scale shifts and a different atmosphere emerges. A circular bench gathers visitors around tea, light and conversation.
 

The object understands itself less as built reality than as a walk-in 1:1 model. Circle, square, timber, cardboard and light come together to form a simple spatial setting that creates a sense of shelter with minimal means. A chimney-like zenithal skylight and the centrally positioned lamp establish a quiet focus. In this way, a small intervention becomes a precise place for “Tea & Talks” – quiet, concentrated and deliberately temporary.