Closet Gallery
9 July - 13 September 2008
The Architecture Foundation launched the temporary Closet Gallery as part of the London Festival of Architecture 2008. The Closet is conceived by artist Simon Fujiwara, designed and produced with architect Sam Causer, in a railway arch in Bankside. The structure contained a series of short exhibitions and events exploring the space between domesticity and the city.
Equal parts sculpture and gallery, The Closet provides The Architecture Foundation with a temporary pavilion as part of an ongoing process that questions how architecture is exhibited and represented. What may at first appear to be a fanciful venue for exhibitions forces architects, artists and critics to question how they present themselves and their work, encouraging new thinking and ideas to come to fruition.
The Closet is constructed in an arch previously used as a shelter by
a homeless man for 30 years. The installation takes the form of a large
built-in wardrobe, reminiscent of the artist's own childhood bedroom furniture.
It forms a display space - conceived as a modern day 'Cabinet of Curiosities'
- that can be opened and closed, filling the entire site. Taking its inspiration
from standard home interior design, and more poignantly bedroom architecture,
The Closet poses questions concerning the division between public
and private spheres, between the domestic and the urban, and ultimately
offers an exhibition venue that injects use-value into a formerly redundant
urban site.
The AF is delighted to announce that Simon Fujiwara was subsequently awarded the 2009 Arts Foundation award for Interior Architecture for his body of work including the Closet Gallery.
At Home With Mme Le Corbusier
9 July - 16 August 2008The Closet Gallery's inaugural exhibition profiled the elusive wife of modernism's most influential architect.
Wandering Through the Future
A film by Marjolijn Dijkman22 - 23 August 2008
The Closet Gallery is transformed into a screening room to present a variety of apocalyptic landscapes and settings from the year 2008 until 802701 AD.
The Rule of Regulations
29 August - 13 September 2008An exhibition by Finn Williams with David Knight exploring the impact new codes, regulations, guidance and legislation has on housing design in the UK.
