Avis Spiralis Bird Blind

The question of shape has informed architectural debate since the earliest civilizations when building took on a symbolic, monumental significance. Before examining the project dealt with in this issue, we should consider the origins of the spiral – a geometric figure generated by a curved line winding around a central point from which it gradually moves away. An ancient configuration, redolent with symbolic and functional inference, the spiral has taken on different forms down the centuries. In the ancient world, it appears in Ionic decorative motifs like the volutes of capitals. In the Middle Ages, it was transformed into three-dimensional structures like spiral staircases in towers and belfries, becoming a metaphor for spiritual elevation. With the Renaissance, the spiral reached full spatial maturity, combining constructive and expressive needs, as in Donato Bramante’s famous spiral staircase in the Vatican Museums. All these examples of spiral-shaped creations – already a feature of Neolithic engravings – show its use as a dynamic element charged with strong persuasive power. The spiral recalls organic structures in its ceaseless movement outwards and upwards away from its generative center. The ultimate contemporary-architecture expression of this tension is Frank Lloyd Wright’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. A ramp wraps around a central void to become the organizing element of the visitor experience that starts at the top of the building to work its way gradually down to the bottom, with visitors viewing the works exhibited as they wend their way down. Pablo Moyano Fernández’s contemporary project Avis Spiralis in a protected natural stretch along the Mississippi River, in the State of Missouri, continues this design approach. Serving as a bird hide, the structure also promotes ecological awareness and landscape conservation.

Avis Spiralis consists of a continuous curved wall more than 30-m long that...

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