Space Craft, an exhibition by the Crafts Council held at Habitat’s Platform gallery on the King’s Road, explores the relationship between making and the built environment. The exhibition brings together two disciplines, often considered as separate, and presents work by architects, designers and artists inspired by materiality and physical space. Their engagement with architecture in this exhibition isn’t expressed in the depiction of buildings or drawings cityscapes– their work is architectural in an abstract sense, using materials and techniques to build form and create a sense of space.
For example, artist and designer Adam Nathaniel Furman showed a collection of 3D-printed and slip-cast pieces in vibrant Ettore Sottsass-style colour, created during his residency at the Design Museum last year. Jeweller Ute Decker exhibited wearable sculptures that can be reconfigured into a multitude of different configurations by the user, while Studio Weave’s Paleys upon Pilers model displayed an intricate timber construction that marks the spot of Aldgate, London and commemorates its most distinguished resident, Geoffrey Chaucer.
My favourite piece though, was Flea Folly Architects’ Grimm City, a vast and astonishingly intricate model, based on the imaginations of the Brothers Grimm and made in the famously enchanted Black Forest in Germany. The miniature universe translates the Grimm characters into an elaborate cityscape constructed from locally sourced timber. You could spend hours and hours studying each little detail, and still discover more.
Space Craft: Architecture meets Making
1 May- 1 June, 2014
208 Kings Road, London SW3 5XP
Opening hours: 10am – 6pm Wednesday – Saturday, 12 – 6pm Sunday
