Caruso St John: Seven Projects
10–31 October 2008
Seven competitions in seven months are too many projects in too little time. We were anxious about the workload in the office and the opportunities presented themselves, but it is still too many projects. In the early days of our practice we would declare that we taught, undertook ‘real’ projects and did competitions. The latter offered us the possibility of designing substantial urban projects at a scale that was not yet evident in our built work. After eighteen years in practice we now have bigger projects and having undertaken tens of major competitions, their potential as research is much diminished. Like most things in this late capitalist world, competitions are how you get work. These competitions are quite typical for us in their Eurocentric geographical spread; two are in Zurich, one each in, Kortrijk, Eindhoven, Milan, and Vienna. Only one is in London. What was not so typical are the building types, only Escher-Wyss-Platz and Milan are connected to the visual arts, all of the other projects are for office buildings or other commercial programmes.
Our greatest anxiety when doing even one competition, never mind seven, is being inspired within a rather limited time period. We want to make a project which satisfies the competition programme while confounding the jury’s expectations, we want to achieve an unusually intense dynamic between commodity and delight. These seven projects offer a good window to the themes that preoccupy the office right now. The format of this exhibition is intended to be as honest as possible about the references that are informing our current work and the process of making a competition design. The formal range that is evident in the work comes from the very varied conditions of each project, but is also a result of an impatience that wants each new project to go somewhere new.
The show is open on weekdays from 10am–7pm
and on Saturdays from 10am–2pm
Friday 10 – Friday 31 October 2008
ASD Exhibitions
Department of Architecture and Spatial Design
Spring House
40–44 Holloway Road
London N7 8JL
T 020 7133 2201
Out now
Caruso St John, Almost Everything
by Philip Ursprung
Ediciones Poligrafa
The Feeling of Things
by Adam Caruso
Ediciones Poligrafa
