Hello, how are you doing?

 

Hi, David. Great, thanks – nice to get to chat to you.

 

Excellent. Well, I'd love to chat to you about your new exhibition. I say 'new'; it’s a transferred exhibition from Venice, of course, from 2021, 'The Garden of Privatized Delights'. I wanted to ask you, firstly, for anybody that doesn't know the show or didn't see the show in Venice, what is its chief point, really? What are you trying to say in the exhibition? And as a subsidiary question to that, has it taken on a different hue with its new context in London?

 

So, The Garden of Privatized Delights was originally our exhibition for the British Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale last year, and it's all about privatized public space. We're really interested in how we can work with different stakeholders, different members of the community, how architects can bring different people from all walks of life around the table, to open up our privatized public spaces and make them more accessible and welcoming for everyone to use. So the main theme we're really exploring is accessibility to public space. We explore that through six different themes within a pavilion, so: from the pub to the garden square, to the playground - we have two ministry rooms looking at bottom-up approaches to land ownership and ownership of data. And then the high street, and also the public toilet. So sorry, David, that's seven themes - completely mumbled that one! (laughs)

 

Returning to London, I think we wanted as much as possible to keep the central installations inside each of the six rooms of the pavilion plus a secret seventh room; that's where we opened up the toilets in the British Pavilion. So we wanted to bring all of those installations back to the UK. But the main difference is that they're no longer separated into rooms. So you get to see them kind of how you would see them in a typical UK, town or city. So you get to see through the pub into the high street, or see the garden square in one room and look out the window and see the playground outside. But for us, it was really exciting to bring the show back to the UK so that so many people that weren't able to travel to Venice, because of COVID-19, could experience the show. And also in Venice, it was very sanitized. There were lots of restrictions that prevented people from interacting with what we designed as one to one large scale, immersive installations. And so as a result, bringing it back to the UK has enabled everyone to interact with these spaces in the way they were originally designed. 

 

But I suppose just to add, from the outset of the project, our intention has always been to see the pavilion as something that was much more than just the British Pavilion in Venice. And so we wanted to bring the installations back to the UK from the outset of the project. And so our ambition was always to work with each of the room designers to design a key installation, just one sole installation within the centre of each of the spaces on each of the six rooms in Venice. And that installation could then be brought back to the UK and eventually put into different types of public space for people to use. And the whole concept behind the exhibition was to create these kind of very interactive experiences that really test how we use privatized public space. And that's been what's so exciting to see it in this new context in London. So, unlike in Venice, it's now free for everyone to access; anyone can walk into the Building Centre and use these spaces. And you really see the relationship between these different types of public space and privatized public space and how our city functions as these networks. It's not about this hierarchy of any one type of space being more important than another. But it's really this network of how they all relate to one another and work with one another.

© Thomas Adank

Are you concerned about the main issue of privatized public space as it occurs in London? And if so, where? I mean, I think of particular sites - I won't name them - but some sort of slightly over-policed sites, which are ostensibly public but actually private. I suppose it's a sort of management issue, isn't it? Are you concerned about that across London?

 

I think it's kind of a global issue. So we were really interested in it from a summer school that we taught together back in 2015, which was looking at the pub as a positive example of privatized public space. And the whole idea behind the pavilion was inspired by and is one of our main visual references. And the title of typically comes from this triptych painting by Hieronymus Bosch - The Garden of Earthly Delights - and we really used that both as a kind of visual reference but also as a kind of conceptual tool to reframe… For the competition, we made a version of the painting as a collage, where we reframed the issue of privatized public space between the extremes of like a common land before the enclosures acts of the 18th century and then the dystopia of total privatization as a kind of future we could be heading towards. But then what we were really interested in was this middle ground of privatized public space - we were trying to break this binary of public is always good and private is bad. And trying to think about the opportunities within privatized public space for architects to, as Maddy was saying, in the previous answer, bring different people around the table, and to really think about how we can open up these spaces for people to access? But the real issue has been, I guess, to how what looks like public space is actually privately owned, and it hasn't been clear in the past exactly what are the rules that govern that space, or you usually only find out something is privately owned once you've kind of broken an invisible rule. And so it's really confusing for members of the public to understand what they can and cannot do in spaces that, for all intents and purposes, look public.

 

Yeah, I think within London, especially, I’m really concerned by the lack of transparency around privatized public space. And so, as you're saying, you often don't know who owns the space you're using until you break the rules. And that really came out in things like the Occupy London protests, in 2011, near St. Paul's Cathedral, where people were protesting on Paternoster Square, which feels like a public space. But it's in fact owned by Mitsubishi Estate company. And so they were told they couldn't protest there and sort of ushered on. And it becomes really scary when you have these sort of basic human rights almost to protest and use our cities. And you don't know what the rules are on the lands that you're using. And there's no sort of common standards or common set of rules. And that's why we're really interested in things like the GLA's Public Space Charter, which looks to try and set a set of standards that all landowners over these privatised public spaces have to use. But I think something else that we're really interested by, is how people often think of privatised public space as these kind of new paved courtyards and developments. But in fact, it's much more than that. And so that's why the pub was a really important room for us, for example, because pubs go back in British culture for hundreds of years. And in many ways, they were one of these kind of original types of privatized public spaces for people opening up their living rooms. And so we're really interested in the kind of greyness of this debate, and how do we, as architects, therefore, engage with it, and what's our role in helping to really open up these spaces and allow people to be able to access them.

© Thomas Adank

It's been a real positive of the project. Just getting this commission enabled us to be part of so many of these conversations with the Greater London Authority. And as they were developing the Public London charter as part of the London plan, we got to speak to them and be part of various conversations and workshops, to see how what they were approaching from a policy level, we could approach from a design level. But we've also been able to have conversations with different landowners. One of the designers we've worked with on our team has been trying to work with citizens assemblies to look at bottom-up forms of democracy. So the project has been really exciting in that it's been so much more than just an installation in Venice that's now travelled back. But it's really been a whole host of conversations to think about how to really open up these spaces.

 

Yeah, especially with that extra year that we had, because of the delay of the when the finale was postponed by a year; that really allowed us to have more of these conversations, which I think really enrichened the thesis behind the project. And I think something that really came out is that as a citizen, you do actually have quite a lot of power and say in what's going on around you. But often you don't know how to access that power, or what it is you can do. And so our catalogue, for example, sort of a visitor's manual, allows people to start to reclaim their public space and gives them the tools and the agency to be able to do that.

 

In the details of the show itself, the signage, we worked with our graphic designers, Kellenberger-White to come up with different typefaces that suggest that kind of individual collective agency of this average citizen. So they worked on a typeface that, actually looked like it was made from finger painting. And a lot of the signs throughout the pavilion, rather than telling you what not to do, which is what you typically find in public spaces - so it says 'no ball games' or you know, you can't run, or you can't loiter. Instead, in our exhibition, we really tried to change that or flip that, and we have these imperatives that encourage you to do things. Because the whole goal of the exhibition is really to learn from how people interact and use the spaces rather than telling them what to do in each of them.

 

We should probably let you speak for a moment! (laughs)

 

(Laughs). It's all fascinating stuff! I mean, I suppose as a sort of final-ish question, I'm interested in the different - if there was a different reaction over there to over here. What's the feedback been?  Has it been contrasting?

 

It's a very different audience. But I think what's amazing is to see how intuitively people just start to use the structures in different ways. And that was something we always were really interested to see. Like, you want people to use these installations in ways that we never would have imagined. And in Venice it was a very different context. Because of COVID, you weren't allowed to touch any of the installations and things like that. Whereas here, everyone's allowed to climb all over them - the climbing frame outside of the Building Centre's constantly got people climbing on it, and of all generations and walks of life, which is amazing to see. But I think, on the whole, it's been really well received. And something that was really positive in Venice was internationally how it really resonated with people from countries around the world who are also grappling with similar issues. And that allowed us to have these kind of more international dialogues and debates about how can we, as architects really positively contribute to opening up our public spaces. And so we are part of the curators’ collective, for example, which was this group of curators from around the world who met every few weeks, to discuss what we're all exploring. And through that, we managed to have a few panel discussions with the Peruvian pavilion, for example, we were also exploring railings around squares in Peru, and how they can make those into play furniture, which is really similar to themes that we're exploring, but exploring them in a very different way. And that's led to a kind of really rich discussion around this topic. Whereas in London, I mean, it's only been open a week, but it feels like, it's really resonating with the public, and everyone who's coming in to visit, because these are all topics that they relate to. So like the toilet, for example, I think when we've been giving tours and showing people around, that one's really resonated with everyone; everyone really remembers a time when they've been so desperate for the toilet, and all the public toilets have closed down around them. So where do they go? And it really starts to get a discussion going about how important it is actually to rethink our public toilets and save the public toilets...

 

And on that, do they connote that issue with, in its broadest sense, the study of architecture and cities? Do they make the connection there?

 

Yeah, I think so. I think there's definitely a connection being made about the importance of good design and how design is something that we need to be thinking at different scales at the same time. So with the toilet, it's about both the design of the public toilet, but it's also about the network and the relationship of public toilets within a city to make sure you can always access one. And, you know, it's all well and good to provide a really nice park or new public realm and outdoor space. But if you can't use the toilet for free, then it's not really accessible to everyone, because people become chained to their homes. Unless there's free seating, free drinking water, and free toilets, it's not really a free space for people to use. And I think what is great in the Building Centre is because you see all the different rooms relating to one another, I feel like those connections are being made quite well by the people visiting. They're really getting how all of these installations and all these types of public space are working in relation to one another. And so we really need to be thinking in tandem about all these spaces together. And not just focusing on one particular detail, but it's about the conversation as a whole.

 

In many ways, I think all these topics that we were interested in exploring before the pandemic have only become more urgent as a result of it. So there's been huge closures up and down the high streets, pubs are more under threat than ever before. The lack of public toilets was really highlighted during especially the first lockdown when people were, really kept on the kind of urinary leash to their homes. And so, I think the topics that we initially gravitated towards, became a little more urgent in terms of how they were experienced than in the way we could discuss them in Venice. But I guess for them returning to the UK has been, I guess, timely. So now is when you know as lockdowns are ending and you know, we've come back collectively in society, I think we're starting to question where we place value and how we actually make sure that cities offer everybody and what the role of the architect is, and all of that. And I think already just in the first week of the show, being open to the Building Centre, it's been great to see people actually interacting with the spaces and thinking about them, and how they could apply to their neighbourhoods or their parts of the city. And we hope that over the next month, there's just more of that, that we can observe and learn from. More conversations that we can be part of as well.

 

Brilliant. Well, we're well over five minutes now, so I'm ripping up my own schedule!  Thank you very much. I had a quick look around the show just before it opened and I'm going go back and have a look a bit more intently. But it looks fascinating. So congratulations!

 

Thank you, David! Let us know when you're down and we'll try and give you a tour. 

 

That'd be great.

 

Thanks David!  Bye!

© Thomas Adank