En+ Group and the V&A, the world’s leading museum of art, design and performance, will today unveil a stunning pavilion made of the world’s lowest carbon primary aluminium, as a focal point of the London Design Festival’s tribute to COP26.
En+ Group (the "Company", "En+ Group" or "the Group") (LSE: ENPL; MOEX: ENPG), the world's largest producer of low-carbon aluminium and independent hydropower, and the V&A, the world’s leading museum of art, design and performance, will today unveil a stunning pavilion made of the world’s lowest carbon primary aluminium, as a focal point of the London Design Festival’s tribute to COP26.
The pavilion, titled “Between Forests and Skies”, has been designed by Nebbia Works, a London based, multidisciplinary design studio, with a heritage in architecture, furniture design and art direction.
The beautiful, immersive, rectangular platform pavilion (length 13.5m x width 9m x height 2.4m) has been produced from 27 individual sheets of low-carbon aluminium, bolted together with circular connection plates. The ‘legs’ of the forest, on which it delicately stands, are waterjet-cut-outs of each sheet, elegantly peeled down from the ceiling to open up vistas to the sky. Standing in a shallow pool of water in the V&A’s stunning courtyard, light travels up the reflective metal from the water to the sky. Visitors are able to walk freely below the silvery canopy.
The pavilion is positioned in the V&A’s John Madejski Garden at the V&A from 18 September to 17 October to coincide with London Design Festival (18 to 26 September). It is a tribute to COP26, the world’s largest climate conference, where world leaders will be gathering in November to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Following the conference, the aluminium from the pavilion will be recycled for future climate campaigns.
Lord Barker, Executive Chairman of En+ Group, said:
"En+ Group is delighted to work with the V&A and the talented designers at Nebbia Works to produce a truly thought-provoking piece of art, putting climate awareness at the heart of the London Design Festival 2021. Ahead of COP26 in Glasgow, the pavilion serves as a prominent, visual reminder of the really critical role that low-carbon aluminium needs to play if we are to meet the goals of the Paris agreement and start to turn the tide on climate change."
Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A, said:
“As the world’s leading museum of art, design and performance, the V&A is approaching the climate crisis with an ethos of urgent responsibility and collaboration to help inspire innovative and creative responses. Our ambition is to explore the ideas and realities of what environmental sustainability means across generations, locations and societies. As the one-time Museum of Manufacture, we are proud to be partnering with En+ on this exciting material exploration of low carbon aluminium, and we look forward to seeing this beautiful pavilion on display at the V&A for London Design Festival.”
Madhav Kidao, Director, Nebbia Works, said:
“Aluminium can be perceived as mechanical, machined and cold. Conceptually we wanted to introduce character and romance into the material through physical manipulation. We were keen to create a structure that encapsulates the feeling of precise irregularity, producing an environment composed of mechanically identical but spatially random components, emulating what we experience in the natural world. The experience of the pavilion is a dreamlike state between the sky and the reflection of the sky; the world and the reflection of the world”.
