Overlooking Berkeley Square, Yue Min’s Contemporary Terracotta Warriors carry out their exercises, while Duane Hanson’s young Surfer prepares to go out into the cold February weather in London. One of the great joys of Phillips modern building is the view that it facilitates into the adjacent streets, while the other auction houses have exhibition galleries […]
While Anish Kapoor’s reflective optical works are pulling in visitors to the newly refurbished Pitzhanger Manor, more sombre sculptures are at the Lisson Gallery, against the backcloth of paintings, not often displayed, and out in the courtyard like historic monuments in this multi-cultural part of London. If you walk past the Gallery, you can see […]
Anish Kapoor is well used to working within historic environments. In 2015, he had the challenge of installing an exhibition of large works within the gardens of the Palace of Versailles, giving the historic formal layouts a new contemporary twist. The recent refurbishment of Pitzhanger Manor has included a new gallery space within the […]
With the art crowd invading London this week, the auction houses have stepped up to the mark with auctions of modern and contemporary art. While Christie’s has stellar works by David Hockney, Francis Bacon, Keith Haring, Anish Kapoor, Thomas Schutte and others, with a focus on Italian art alongside British, it also has more affordable […]
There can’t be many, if any, art events on the scale of the Summer Exhibition which are still going strong after 250 years. With such a momentous anniversary and with its redevelopment project completed, the Royal Academy had to pull out all the stops this year so, who better to ask to coordinate it than […]
Many congratulations to the Contemporary Art Centre in Malaga which celebrated its 15th birthday in February this year. Established by the city authorities in the former Wholesalers Market constructed in 1939 by the architect Luis Gutiérrez Soto, the Contemporary Art Centre Malaga has been part of a successful strategy to bring new art galleries and […]
Paul Fryer’s Black Phoenix is perhaps representative of what those affected by the Grenfell tower fire are hoping for the future – that they can recreate a new life from one of the blackest tragedies to affect London. Tacida Dean’s new work “Lay the dust with Tears” portrays the dust clouds that would have swirled […]
Arundel Great Court was an immense Brutalist mixed use complex of offices and hotel designed by Sir Frederick Gibberd & Partners and built from 1971-6 running from the Embankment all the way up to the Strand. At its heart was a courtyard, originally proposed to be opened to the public, but was closed off long […]
Imagine you are standing on the surface of Mars, the Red Planet, with the contrast of your precision-made reflective metal space capsule against the rough rugged barren landscape ahead of you, perhaps appearing like a volcanic form in which twisting swirling flames and smoke might fly out, throwing glowing, bright red rocks far up into the sky. This contrast […]
The long ramp from the city is guarded by a huge dog, protecting and guiding strangers down to the entrance around which are towers of stone and titanium like the protective armour of an armadillo. On the other side facing the river, a moat provides protection, with mystical mists and fiery flames blasting upwards to […]
"The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden. If you don't want paradise, you are not human; and if you are not human, you don't have a soul."
(Thomas Moore)
To be an architect means having a wide range of interests - architecture, art and creativity in all its variety of forms, sustainability, science and innovation. The greatest interest is often where these different worlds overlap and collide - that is when something imaginative often occurs that pushes us all forward to another place
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