Bruges Diptych – PARA Project Brugge Triennale 2021
For the 2021 Brugge Triennale TraumA, Jon Lott of Para Project designed the Brugge Diptych, a temporary floating pavilion that explored themes of urban trauma. Moored on 15 pontoons within a residential canal, the wood-framed structure carefully avoided touching the protected UNESCO city fabric.
Positioned beside an abandoned 15th-century canal house, the pavilion engaged in a quiet dialogue of estrangement and reflection—mirroring, scaling, and orienting itself in subtle sympathy with its historic neighbor. Architecture here becomes an emotional register, where trauma is sensed as much as seen.
The Diptych formed part of Lott’s ongoing exploration of architectural “strangers”—preceded by Storefront for Storefront(2016) and the Roche/Dinkeloo Double (2018)—all built using common framing and rooted in questions of institutional and urban identity.
