In May 2001 Worth featured a small news item previewing a unique architecture project by sisters Morgan and Gisue Hariri of New York–based Hariri & Hariri Architects. Designed in 1999, the futuristic cinema on Brooklyn’s waterfront has yet to come to fruition; it was anticipated then that the project would not be completed until 2020.
These two sisters gave us a vision of future high-tech homes with their Digital House concept (1999). Now the forward-thinking architecture team of Gisue and Mojgan Hariri offers a peek at how we may someday go to the movies.
The conceptual architects have created Cine, a 50,000-square-foot moviegoer mecca, complete with indoor and outdoor theaters, a film school and a cyber café. For now, Cine only exists as a model, but the Hariris are looking to collaborate with Texas Instruments to develop digital micromirror display screens—transparent panels that allow people to watch a film from either side of the screen.
At Cine, the Hariris envision audiences watching the same movie on one screen from inside or outside the building. A location for Cine has been selected under the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, but the Hariris estimate that the project would take until 2020 to complete. Now they just need to find a developer with as much foresight as they have.
—Shahrzad Elghanayan
