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res publica. Temporary installation, commissioned for the ‘5x5’ Washington DC (USA) public art festival (2012), comprising three distinct elements: (1) a stainless steel leaflet dispenser; (2) printed plans for making a 1:50 scale architectural cardboard model of the Supreme Court; PDF copies of the printed plan were also downloadable from the ‘5x5’ website (3) four human-scale cardboard versions of the model installed at various sites around the city. (constructed with the help of students at Washington’s Corcoran College of Art and Design). See: http://www.wolfgangweileder.com/installation/res_publica.html ; http://www.the5x5project.com/bios/richard-hollinshead/wolfgang-weileder/ ; http://www.globegallery.org/archive-magnificent-distance.php

This body of work extended previous research interrogating formal and temporal aspects of urban architectural space by engaging directly in complex and pressing societal issues around the social function of architecture and public space. The research sought to explore dialogues between privilege and deprivation through site-specific interventions.

The stainless steel dispenser, positioned on the pavement outside the Supreme Court in Washington DC, was deliberately presented as a miniature Palladian temple based on the proportions of the Court building. Printed plans and building instructions for a 1:50 scale architectural model of the Supreme Court made from found cardboard were freely available from the stainless-steel dispenser, encouraging the public to actively take part in the creation and dissemination of the artwork.

Using these instructions, four initial models were constructed by students at Washington’s Corcoran College of Art and Design, and were installed at locations selected for their associations with privilege and homelessness (including the Washington DC Jewish Community Centre, the Cosmos Club parking lot and the TechWorld Plaza). These models were left to the mercy of the weather and urban environment, decaying or being removed or destroyed over a month-long period.

Finally, a limited-edition artwork, a digital print of the cardboard model, was auctioned to raise funds for Washington DC’s homeless community.

In combining these elements and presenting them within the cityscape, res publica juxtaposed two diametrically different understandings of architecture: one representative of power and prestige and the other a basic shelter for survival.

The project received considerable local press attention, including in the Washington Post and on cultural blogs. Documentation was presented alongside other works from ‘5x5’, in the exhibition ‘Magnificent Distance’ (Globe Gallery, Newcastle, UK, 2012). Res publica is also discussed in ’Continuum’, a monograph on Weileder published internationally by Kerber Verlag (Bielefeld/Berlin).