Into the Sun Exhibition

'Block' and 'Mansion' as part of the 'Into the Sun' exhibition

Last June I exhibited new work as part of the 'Into the Sun' group show at the A-side B-side gallery in Hackney Downs studios. I found the theme –holidays– very enticing and decided to produce new original work for the occasion. I knew I wanted to use wood again as I really enjoyed with the last entry to the Battersea quadriptych. This time though, I wanted to be a bit more rough and spontaneous.

These also were meant to be a set of three but time constraints meant only two were made – at least for now. Seen as a whole they might look more polarised than they really are. My intention here though is to explore the relationship between class, holidays and property and reflect on our own prejudices and assumptions concerning the symbols of wealth and social hierarchy in modern day capitalist society. I also wanted to create dichotomy between the public and the private in the way the background is split into two.

'MANSION'
Acrylic and Ink on Wood
900x634mm

'BLOCK'
Acrylic and Ink on Wood
900x634mm

'Block' – Preliminary Sketch

'Mansion' – Preliminary Sketch

The A-side B-side gallery in Hackney Downs

Nakagin Capsule Tower 中銀カプセルタワー

Last spring I visited Japan for the first time. In many ways it was to be a very important journey for me, for years I dreamt of going there and always pushed the day further and further back because I wanted to be ready for it. Ready to take it all in. A few months after my return to London, it's still distilling something I don't yet know.

I've always thought that spending some time living in a city is necessary to understand how it really works. Most of my urban awareness relies on the contrasts I've seen in towns I've spent a great deal of time in. That's why I decided, although strongly advised against, to spend at least two weeks in Tokyo where I was mostly based in Nakano.

Even though I was aware of this, Tokyo's lack of a historic centre really hit me. As a European I come from a place with its fair share of architectural heritage. My hometown Barcelona, and many Spanish cities, were planned around their old historic quarter, building successive rings of urban development during the Industrial Age. There's some sense of order and structure in these towns. Tokyo feels like a chaotic amalgamation of styles and hints at its plasticity, which certainly generates a vibrant spontaneous ecosystem but feels imposed by natural hazards and war. Very little there seems to be built to last. Everything is transient and the lifespan of buildings is short enough to make Tokyo a very different city for each generation.

This concept of an adaptable ever-changing system sits at the core of Metabolism, an architectural movement developed in post-war Japan that fused ideas about megastructures with those of organic biological growth. Nakagin Capsule Tower is one of its most iconic buildings which still stands, to my surprise, as I stumbled upon it on a stroll through Ginza. Built in 1972 and designed by Kisho Kurokawa it's made up of capsules that work as self-contained units, but these can be attached to each other and rearranged along two core concrete towers to create a variety of spaces. In other words, it's a mutant building that can change its shape and adapt to the occupant's necessities.

Despite this ability to adapt to change, recently, its current residents voted to demolish the building and replace it with a larger more modern block.

In this illustration, Nakagin Capsule Tower rearranges its capsules to form the word METABOLISM. It was published in Q9 Magazine last May.

On site photo from a pedestrian walkway

A Map of Soho

This map of Soho was commissioned by estate agents Greater London Properties. Proudly based in Broadwick Street as the only property shop front in Soho, they wanted a vibrant vision of London's renowned entertainment district that would encapsulate the energy and diversity of an area they have operated in for more than 10 years and have an unrivalled knowledge of.

Together we sat down and went over key moments of its exciting history. From its beginnings as a failed urban development for the 18th Century's wealthiest to the dazzling culture hotspot that is today, without ignoring its recent past as London's notorious red light district.


We then picked a few from a myriad of interesting characters that at some point lived there and, in a bit of a surrealist effort, related them to some of Soho's most popular buildings. Thus, with my bicycle and camera I set out on an exhaustive journey through its labyrinthine streets and crooked alleys.

From the barren to the tourist-barricaded corners I took tons of photos of facades, pieced them together and drew over them to create these quirky characters.

Carnaby Street as Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles' milestone album added a sound track to the commercial epicentre of psychedelic Swinging London.

The John Snow Pub as Himself – even scientists drink beer, especially when 'someone' has dismantled the local water pump.

Brewer Street Car Park as Paul Raymond – one's got to park the car somewhere before a long night out in neighbouring Revue Bar.

The Windmill Club as a Can Can Dancer – these dancers could only legally perform naked as tableaux vivants.

St Anne's Church as a Great War British soldier – it resurfaced from the ashes after being hit by a bomb during The Blitz.

Compton's of Soho as Casanova – the master of romantic suspense had fun in Soho too.

Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club as Himself – his saxophone solos still reverberate across Soho streets.

Bar Italia as a Barista – only Italians truly understand the alchemy of coffee making.

Old Foyles Bookshop as Karl Marx – philosophers buy their books somewhere.

The Palace Theatre as an Opera Valkyrie – nothing less than the consecrated home of British grand opera back in the time

Greater London Properties offices as a friendly property expert!

And to finish with, the A5 postcard of the map. 

A Map Of Clerkenwell

Slightly North East from Central London, Clerkenwell is plenty of history and probably the most central area to join London's recent mass gentrification. Named after the Clerks' Well that still stands nearby –albeit enclosed within a building and behind a glass window– the area is linked to a long forgotten monastic past. A backdrop for historic characters of the likes of Oliver Cromwell –he owed a house there– Charles Dickens– a scene of his Oliver Twist is set in Clerkenwell Green– and Vladimir Lenin, who used to work at number 37a, now the Marx Memorial Library. 

This map stems off a commission that fell through, but that allowed me to explore and investigate the rich history behind an area that best reflects the old-village-absorbed-by-Victorian-metropolis feel. Find out more about Clerkenwell's living landmarks, starting clockwise from Angel. 

The clock tower built by J.D. Smith and Sons marks the entrance to The Angel in the Borough of Islington and its long strip of shops recalling an era of clockmaker business. 

Further down South there's Northampton Square where City University's main campus is. It houses the prestigious Inns of Court School of Law.

Due to being built on marshland St Luke's church laid abandoned for 40 years until it was refurbished into a music hall operated by the London Symphony Orchestra. 

Densely populated with web-based companies, Old Street Roundabout has been nicknamed Silicon Roundabout and is infamous among cyclists. 

Flanked by elegant early council housing, Whitecross Street livens up every Thursday and Friday at lunchtime with food stalls serving all sorts of delicious take aways. 

Hidden away off Moorgate, there's the Honourable Artillery Company's grounds, the second oldest military organisation in the world, now a charity. 

Designed by the same architects, the Golden Lane Estate is the forefather of the Barbican, notorious in its darkest times for suicides from the rooftop and now sought after 60s property. 

St John's Gate reminisces Clerkenwell's monastic past. It was the entrance to the priory of the Order of St John, the Knights Hospitaller. 

In Victorian times Smithfield Market, London's main meat market, was described as the most pestilent place in the capital. It still serves its original purpose, being the last surviving historic wholesale market in Central London. 

Next to Chancery Lane station still stands one of the few Tudor buildings to survive two of the toughest moments in London's history, the Great Fire and The Blitz. The Staple Inn, currently the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. 

When Farringdon Station opened in 1863 it was the terminus of the Metropolitan Railway, the first underground metro line in the world. 

The Medieval City of London had business organised in different quarters by trades. The area around Hatton Garden was and still is the jeweller's quarter and centre of the UK diamond trade.

Lively Leather Lane with its daily food market and its Edwardian tenement blocks, the Bourne Estate. When the working day is over cycle couriers gather up around the repair shop/cafe Full City.

The spiritual centre of Clerkenwell, the Green, is presided by the Old Sessions House, a Classical style building that was the centre of the judicial and administrative court of the County of Middlesex, mostly part of Greater London now. 

St Peter's Italian Church was built for the growing Italian immigrant community that settled here in the mid 19th Century and made this area London's Little Italy.

For centuries the ground of the Sadler's Wells theatre has been dedicated to performing arts and it is currently one of the UK's foremost dance venues.

A photo of an A4 print.

The Circle's on Fire!

Last entry about the Barbican inspired works. This time it's the Circle, and he's hot! Yeah, because he's eaten a very spicy chilli and needs to drink water from the Thames to cool himself down. People at the Southbank must be freaking out to see such a massive creature looming over right across Waterloo bridge. Let's hope he won't have a nap anywhere near!

This set of works are done by combining photos and digital drawing.

THE BARBICAN!

Back to drawing buildings. My friends know that for a long time I have wanted to do something on The Barbican, not quite finding out the way of being true to this fascinating building complex. After my first visit in autumn 2008, when I had recently arrived in London, it made me think of a sci-fi set up in which it was the only civilised remnant in a dystopian future London, like a sort of a Noah's ark of culture among devastation.

However, like the Transformers there's so much more than meets the eye, and so massive it is the Barbican is full of secrets, hidden spots and nooks, a bit of a metaphor of London itself. So after many times wandering around the estate in my spare time, I went back to basics and, drawing inspiration from early works, resumed with the idea of giant straight forward Modernist creatures, something in between monsters and robots wreaking havoc on London. No hidden meaning, just postmodernist fun.

THE BARBICAN! is one in a set of three postcards, with one of the towers portrayed as some sort of Brutalist Godzilla with a dangerous aversion to Classic architecture.

Seagram Building

ORNAMENT IS A CRIME.

So it reads one of the slogans that sum up the International Style, developed in the 1920s to bring industrialized mass-production techniques to architecture, and think of houses as 'machines for living'.

It is likely that if you look out the window you see a glass office building. Before the Seagram Building (1958), designed by German architect Mies van der Rohe, skyscrapers didn’t look like that, they weren’t ‘transparent’. Like the neighbouring Empire State or the Chrysler they were probably Art Deco or copying historic styles.

However, together with Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius, van der Rohe was to change that by championing a radical simplification of architecture. The structural elements of a building would make all the ornamentation in an attempt to establish a more honest conversation with the public.

I think that these architects were successful in conveying these ideals through their architecture; another very different thing is what corporations do in them.

Anyway, who cares? IT’S A BUILDING WEARING A SUIT!!

This illustration is the second in succession of 6 postcards designed for Bauhaus: Art as Life at the Barbican.

Vectors

It's been a fun weekend wandering around London with my cousin and his girlfriend. To resume blog life I thought of uploading character design tests I did entirely in flash to practice vector drawing.

The girl (it's a girl) with the builder helmet is only drawn but the gap-toothed kid is made in pieces so it's animation ready. Vector drawing (as I see it) seems much less intuitive than in Photoshop, it feels like being an architect 'building' a drawing in Auto Cad. However, it has something knacky that reminded me of my Lego youth.