Hyundai Pavilion: the darkest building in the world

A portal for a parallel universe? A dark distant galaxy?

No, only the Hyundai Pavilion, also known as "the darkest building in the world", the latest project by the British architect Asif Khan.

On the occasion of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, not far from the ski slopes where the races take place, the man has, in fact, created a large black cube of 35x35 m coated with Vantablack VBx2 carbon nanotubes and illuminated by thousands of tiny rods of white light, elements that together create the illusion of a field of stars suspended in space.

"From a distance the structure has the appearance of a window looking into the depths of outer space" - said Asif Khan in a statement – "As you approach it, this impression grows to fill your entire field of view. So on entering the building, it feels as though you are being absorbed into a cloud of blackness."

The secret to this effect is Vantablack VBx2, a super-black paint developed and patented by NASA for military purposes with employment prospects in the aerospace and defense sectors, first used by the artist Anish Kapoor. Its characteristic? It absorbs more than 99% of the light that hits its surface, preventing the human eye from detecting any kind of shadows to interpret the shape of an object.

If outside the pavilion is super-black, the interior is illuminated in white and Khan has designed a vast "water room" - a multi-sensorial water repellent installation, which emits 25,000 drops of water every minute. Through tactile sensors, visitors can create new rhythms with which the drops fall, collide and separate.

Magic in magic.