London, Great Britain
Winy Mass and his team from MVRDV have designed this installation taking inspiration from the history of the site.
Marble Arch once marked the corner of Hyde Park, but in the 1960s new roads were added that turned the arch into a traffic island, disconnected from the rest of the park.
MVRDV’s design reintroduces a park-like landscape of grass and trees, and ‘lifts’ this recreated corner of Hyde Park to create a spectacular 25-meter-tall viewpoint that gives visitors an overview of Oxford Street and the park, and a new perspective on Marble Arch itself.
Marble Arch Hill will be experienced via a single continuous route. Visitors will climb to the viewpoint via a path that winds its way up the hill’s southern slope, after which they will descend into a great Hall in the heart of the hill, a hollowed-out space that will be used for events, exhibitions, and other happenings.
The exit from the Hall is located in a notch in the corner of the hill that ensures the temporary structure is offset from Marble Arch.
In this way, visitors are confronted with multiple views on the arch, giving them a new perspective on an object they might otherwise take for granted.
“This project is a wonderful opportunity to give an impulse to a highly recognizable location in
London,” says MVRDV founding partner Winy Maas.
It is a location full of contradictions, and our design highlights that. By adding this landscape element, we make a comment on the urban layout of the Marble Arch, and by looking to the site’s history, we make a comment on the area’s future.”
“We enlarge the park and lift it at the corner. Marble Arch Hill strengthens the connection between Oxford Street and the park via the Marble Arch. Can this temporary addition help inspire the city to undo the mistakes of the 1960s, and repair that connection?”
Marble Arch Hill uses a scaffold structure on its base, which will support the plywood and soil layers needed for the grass upper layer to grow.
At strategic points, the structure is adapted to hold large planters that will be home to trees.
The design draws from two separate lineages of MVRDV’s work: the office showed the transformative potential of temporary scaffold structures with its 2016 Stairs to Kriterion installation in Rotterdam; the mountain concept, meanwhile, recalls the 2004 proposal for the Serpentine Pavilion nearby in Hyde Park.
MVRDV’s Marble Arch Hill
Architects: MVRDV
Design Team: Winy Maas, Gideon Maasland, Gijs Rikken, Sanne van Manen, Joanna Wirkus and Paulina Kurowska
Client: Westminster City Council
