Images (c) Maya Almaraz.

Gastronomy is all about discovery. So it was with no great surprise that we learned of Dinner in Seven Acts, a recent meal-based architectural event, designed by architect-artist duo Warm Engine and built by craftsman Daniel Quinn. Seven Acts proposed spatial engagement as a way to heighten the experience of taste, through a series of surprises, revelations, and provocations orchestrated by its designers. More.

Designers Cheryl, Greta, and Daniel set out to amplify the spatial experience of eating. That meant transforming the “mealspace” while it was filled with guests – no small feat, considering the hyper-regimented ettiquite involved in staging a seven course dinner. They decided to “unfold” the space gradually, over the evening. After arriving at the Chelsea showroom where the event was held, guests were ushered in fours into black cubicle spaces, only just large enough to hold a table and four chairs. After each course, the screened walls of the boxes were pulled back to reveal neighboring diners. By the end of the meal, guests were sitting side-by-side at a long, farm-style table.

Food designers Brian Ackley and Lisa Farjam focused on temperature as the vehicle through which the fare transformed over the course of the evening. Explains Cheryl, “the menu was shaped around a change in temperature and physical state; courses began at cold (frozen) and worked their way through liquid, room temperature, hot, hotter, and so on.” The meal included courses by Mike Lee of NY Underground Supperclub, Studiofeast, and by local beer brewer John William Tasevoli.

The spatial “unfolding” of the dining room was replicated at the scale of the diner in the custom-fabricated dining table built by Daniel Quinn. The table — which seemed normal enough, initially — revealed a series of secret compartments to guests as the meal progressed: as the soup course arrived, a thin two-inch trench appeared at the center of the table. Before dessert, guests received notes asking them to lift up their placemats, revealing secret compartments holding garnishes.

“Dishes emerged like matryoshka dolls,” says Cheryl, “singular yet repeated, simultaneously a part and the whole.”

Images (c) Maya Almaraz.

Images (c) Maya Almaraz.

by Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan

posted in Events

tagged dinner, dinner in seven acts, Events, gastronomy, GOOD, parties, warm engine

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