Waiting room

2011
An installation at St Philips Building, Sheffield st, London, WC2A 2EX
An exhibition to mark the life of the St Philips Building was quickly organised before its imminent demolition. Dominic Wilcox was one of those asked to create something in the buliding that would reference the buildings history in some way. The St Philips building started in 1903 as a workhouse Infirmary for the poor before going on to be a hospital for women and then bought by the London School of Economics.

On visiting St Philips Dominic found the last remaining office, left abandonded and intact.

“I thought that it was as if the room was waiting to die and I wanted to ease its transition from this world. My thought for the office was to leave it intact but to remove the colour from every aspect in the room (via white paint) thereby taking away a layer of reality and connection to our world as it moves closer to its imminent death.” Dominic Wilcox

via Dominic Wilcox

Waiting Room from Dominic Wilcox on Vimeo.

—————————————–
I thought the use of white to signify impending doom leaves a very deep impression in people’s mind.
This treatment of physical, visually seen (directly) “whitespace”, I perceive as something portraying reality instead

It is that kind of uncertainty, recalling what exactly the colour of the object is..as if recalling someone close to you leaving, having flashbacks memories on the interaction between you and the person that passed away. almost colourless, fading away. It is the non-existence of the person in future that makes one person ache.

It is the memories and connections we have with the person/object that make us ache.

Van Alen Bookstore

The very existence of Van Alen Books makes a powerful argument about the role of the book in our professional culture. The consensus opinion regarding architectural publishing seems to be that the era of the architectural “tome” is over. But the argument that we don’t “need” bookstores anymore, since we buy books less, ignores the implicit social currency that these spaces deal in. Opening Van Alen Books could be seen as as huge risk, but on the other hand, the store addresses the dearth of public meeting and forum spaces in the city.

A look at the LOT-EK designed space proves that subtextual point: where are the books? Does it matter?

via Architizer