Ben Langlands & Nikki Bell

Uno City

1992

Blind embossed paper print

72.5 x 71 cm

Unframed

The image produced by Langlands and Bell, UNO City, is a blind embossed print, square in format, on 300gsm Somerset White Textured paper. It was printed by Ian Mortimer. It represents the architectural ground plan of the conference centre of the offices for the United Nations (UNO standing for United Nations Organisation) in Vienna. The offices are called UNO City. This conference centre is circular in form and divided into two assembly rooms each with a semi-circular seating arrangement in the form of an amphitheatre. Behind these are two semi-circles of booths, offices and lift-shafts. These in turn are surrounded by a circular corridor from which three T-shaped forms protrude, representing external lift shafts and staircases.

Because of the relief structure resulting from the embossing technique, and without the text and figures that normally accompany architects' plans, the form represented in UNO City is reminiscent of a wax seal. Langlands and Bell have collaborated since 1978, making work which relates architectural structures (such as those represented in the ground plans of public buildings) with other structures and forms in visual language. For UNO City they drew the ground plan on tracing paper in black and white, from which it was transferred to the metal plate that was used to emboss the paper.