Below Grade

The second pavilion acts as an underground passage and represents life as a slave. It is dark with low lighting and acts as a link to the other main exhibition pavilions.  Since this passage is about constraints it has four contemplation spaces that engage the site. Two of the spaces are about visual exhibitions and gaze at the bridge and shipping cranes. The other two spaces are acoustic exhibitions and engage the existing train tracks and basin.

The third pavilion represents life in the new world. It has six floors and reaches skyward from the depths of the underground passage. It is accessed through the darkness of slavery but eventually breaks free into a glass-enclosed space of freedom. Stairs replace ramps as visitors ascend to the glass top.  This signifies the change of attitudes that it took to abolish slavery and subsequent conflicts that emerged because of it.  It overlooks the basin as the tallest building on the site but is closer to the train tracks than the other pavilions.  In the new world slaves, were eventually freed but forever changed. These changes still reside in the generations that came after.  In this space the visitors view is unobstructed and they are able to see the site and the constraints that bind it together.