LENOPTIKAON

Lenoptikaon is a community learning space and museum which seeks to make visible the colonial nature of modern day museums. Located just a few hundred meters from the historic Philadelphia Museum of Art, this museum extension converges two radically different tectonic systems, the architecture of prisons and the architecture of indigenous housing, in order to draw parallels between the former tectonic and its intrinsic carceral nature.

This project contains several educational spaces including classrooms, a library, and an outdoor theater to be used to teach newer generations not to repeat the mistakes of the past. These communal educational spaces mimic the form of Kwenikaons, native Leni Lenape elongated community homes designed to house 25 -30 families during winter months.