Thirtieth birthdays are an indicator of the move from youth to maturity.  How do to celebrate?  Do you have a massive party with all your friends or do you hide and pretend that you are still twenty-nine?

Project Managers Buro Four decided to celebrate their thirtieth birthday with the creative flourish of an art competition, “Thirty for Thirty”, where thirty new and emerging artists were asked to submit a piece of work which linked to a building project the firm had helped to deliver in its thirty years of project management.

The thirty artworks were displayed at the Royal Festival Hall this week when the winning artist, who receives a cash prize, was announced.  All the work will be featured in a special book and will be displayed in Buro Four’s offices throughout the year.

The thirty artists took thirty different approaches to the challenge. Lee Ellis painted the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in action, capturing the magic of the performers as they bring the building to life, Angelica Yiacoupis provided a blueprint image of the world in a test tube with links to marine engineering taught at the University of Southampton, Caio Locke placed Embankment Place, London in a globe transforming this area of London into a fantasy wonderland and Barbara Nati took All Souls Church in Bolton and set it on the back of an elephant reminiscent of images of the Elephant and Castle in London, while Matt Bennington used Wentworth Castle and Conservatory as the backcloth to images of displaced Iroquois children, providing a historic connection to the botanist John Bartram who had sent botanical samples to the Wentworths and was born near the Carlisle Industrial School where Native Americans claimed they had to relinquish their cultures.

Sculpture was included: Sophie Dickens reflected on the opening up of the National Theatre with “the inside reaching out, enticing the outside in”, Mark Rose’s floating geometrical sculpture of the Angel Building took inspiration from the interior structure of the atrium and the light that floods through it, while Gemma Land combined tradition and contemporary techniques by creating a brilliantly-coloured quilt which combines analogue film photography and hand sewing with digital fabric printing for her representation of the Department of Engineering Building at the University of Liverpool.

And the winner?   Becky Allan’s image of streams of light which she experienced at 10 Burlington Street, London which she has transformed into an image where precise geometric shapes contrast with undulating moving organic forms where the viewer is left to engage with their meaning.

A creative way to celebrate thirty years – hopefully Buro Four will achieve something similarly creative for their next milestone birthday.