Fundament Foundation, an independent foundation for contemporary art and public space, has commissioned Australian designer Callum Morton to design a pavilion for De Oude Warande in Tilburg, the Netherlands.

Called Grotto, the 10m x 6m x 4m high structure is an art piece, a meeting place, somewhere to eat and drink, and a stage for contemporary music or performance.

Grotto is a Baroque folly, a screen, a cave, a grave and a functional pavilion. Morton’s thinking was guided by Baroque notions, the principles of contemporary entertainment, the human habit of looking for a place to be together with someone else, and the desire to produce an exciting tension between interior and exterior.

“In the first instance, I wanted to develop a design that would clash with the Baroque layout of De Oude Warande,” says Morton. “But now I think it clashes with itself. Grotto is a paradox.”

Morton designed an invisible pavilion - the exterior is not immediately apparent, because it is a mirror, so all eight paths of the star continue in the reflection.

The exterior of the pavilion functions both as a façade, screening off the inside from the outside, and as a reflective screen, mirroring and continuing the outside world. However, this continuation is an illusion. The Baroque design only appears to remain in view, since anyone who steps inside the pavilion is confronted with another essential characteristic of Baroque garden designs.

The interior is a cave-like space, sunk 75 centimetres below ground level. Walls have holes at eye level, through which the outside world can be seen, as the glass façade is made of two-way mirrors. In the evening, the interior is illuminated in such a way that the reflective function of the pavilion is cancelled out and the glass box makes place for a dark mound, reminiscent of a burial mound. This transformation takes place gradually as darkness falls, so that the pavilion not only has a constantly changing form but alternate meanings too.

Inside, the kitchen and furniture has been created by designer Olav Koreman in a typically Dutch tradition (De Stijl), but also with references to Minimal Art of artists including Sol LeWitt. Using minimal means, Koreman has achieved maximum effect both inside and outside, while at the same time leaving the complex character of Grotto completely intact.