When Yeezy premiers a film, it’s safe to assume he’s not going to gather some people inside an auditorium and hit the lights. Why do that when you can commission a massive pyramid to house a seven-screen cinematic palace?
Kanye’s Cannes Xanadu is probably the closest we’ll ever get to literally stepping inside the guy’s brain. Lavish, indulgent and totally spectacular, the pyramid seats 200 before an array of enormous 5m x 5m displays. And how else could he have debuted his new flick, Cruel Summer? It mixes Arabic folklore with Kid Cudi — no ordinary theatre would’ve done the trick.
The rap movie megaplex is the first fruit from Donda, Kanye’s DARPA-esque creative firm, which worked in tandem with OMA, a New York architectural firm. It’s exactly what we expected: entirely visually overwhelming, inside and out, combining the look of a parked starship and the decadence of an imperial palace. It might not make sense for, say, a screening of We Bought a Zoo, but it’s thrilling to see West’s design lunacy spill over IRL, rather than just be the stuff of tweets. We want more — but first, let’s get inside that thing. Head to OMA’s site for more pictures. You’ll want to be in there, Cannes or no Cannes. [OMA via Architizer]
Images: OMA