Elements: Gillespie Kidd and Coia and Sir John Soane

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This research project was produced during Veronika’s Masters Degree under the guidance of Mark Baines and Christopher Platt between 2017 and 2018. It was generated by an invitation to the Mackintosh School of Architecture from the Sir John Soane Museum in London to curate an exhibition consisting of architectural models of a selection of GKC’s work. The invitation is part of the Soane Museum’s ambition to exhibit modern and contemporary architectural work which has some resonances with the work of Sir John Soane the architect. GKC is the first subject to be considered for this prestigious initiative and venue.

 

The exhibition, entitled ‘Elements’, will examine qualities and characteristics of GKC’s work by exploring abstracted elements of their buildings through the medium of physical modelling. These models will form the main content of the exhibition in London.

 

A series of cast models is intended to physically expose and reveal some of the significant ideas and preoccupations concerning entry, structure, light and detail. As physical artefacts they may act as memories or fragments of buildings which, like Gandy’s portrayal Soanes’ buildings as excavated ruins, might serve to encapsulate the essence of a series recurring preoccupations, interrelated themes and exploratory ideas which characterise the work of GKC whilst under the design direction of Andy Macmillan and Isi Metzstein between 1956 and 1987.