Donum Debuts Dazzling Glass Structure

The Vertical Panorama Pavilion draws inspiration from Sonoma's weather and landscape

- KENNY MARTIN

Donum Estate, a Carneros Pinot Noir producer, has welcomed a new, mosaic structure: the Vertical Panorama Pavilion. Unveiled in August, the pavilion was designed by Berlin-based Studio Other Spaces, a collaborative firm founded by artist Olafur Eliasson and architect Sebastian Behmann. According to the studio, the elevated conical canopy lined with multicolored, recycled glass panels was inspired by "the history of circular calendars." The work is supported by 12 columns representing the months of the year, and the colors of the panels "depict the weather conditions essential for the creation of Donum's wine: solar radiance, wind intensity, temperature and humidity."

The canopy is divided into 52 radial parts representing the weeks of the year, while 16 horizontal divisions represent the four meteorological parameters sunlight, wind, temperature and humidity-during four six-hour slices of the day. In this way, each panel represents the intensity of a single parameter at a particular time of day, during a given week of the year. The artists determined the color of each panel by applying local weather data to an abstraction of the color wheel, using darker tones for high values and lighter tones for low ones. The result is a mosaic that visually represents the changing Sonoma weather.