Reimagine Mayfair : The Arts Society

art of mayfair. mayfair. art society

Course . Architecture and Historic Urban Environments Module . Design Research Methods for Historic Environments . BARC0033 Tutor . Afra Van’t Land Students. Qiaoxi Wu (19137431): Anqi Liu (19149960)

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Mayfair

MA Architecture and Historic Urban Environments The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL May 2020

gen e r a l a rt h is t o ry of Ma yf a ir Mayfair is where art meets. Renowned as the home of several of London’s famous galleries and auction houses, it’s the hunting ground of the world’s most formidable art dealers. It is a unique environment, where collectors and gallerists meet in the street and catch up over coffee.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, Cork Street has been lined with the most prominent commercial art galleries. The street runs approximately north-west from the junction of Burlington Arcade with Burlington Gardens, and is close to Burlington House, which houses the Royal Academy of Arts. It is parallel to, and immediately to the east of, New Bond Street. Today the street is known in the art world for its many commercial art galleries, and is close to the Royal Academy on Piccadilly to the south, when has an interest in the artistic nature of the street. As of 2012, there are 22 galleries in the street.

The street is considered to be one of the United Kingdom’s “most important art hubs”.The galleries of Cork Street have launched the careers of many major modern artists in Britain. For example, the Mayor Gallery was the venue for the first London exhibitions of Francis Bacon, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, and Joan Miró. Peggy Guggenheim opened her ‘Guggenheim Jeune’ art gallery at number 30 in 1938. Also Fine Art Society, has been trading from its elegant Victorian building at No 148 since 1876. It specialised in the very finest Victorian and early 20th century artists.

In 2012 the Save Cork Street campaign was created to protect Cork Street as a contemporary arts district.

With 13,000 supporters, including David Hockney and Sir Peter Blake, the Save Cork Street campaign attracted major press interest. Also during the recent years the Pollen Estate is spearheading a major initiative aimed at restoring Cork Street’s innovative reputation, creating the most prestigious, dedicated street for art in the world.

Fig 1. Burlington House in the 1690s. The line of Cork Street runs away from the back of the house on the left hand side

Fig 2. Royal Academy of Arts in 2017

int ro /d e s ig n sy no psi s Our design for this term is to introduce the visitors, gallerists, artists, buyers in Mayfair a new perspective on the art world in Mayfair. As well as providing young artists the opportunities and platforms to connect with the auction houses and different buyers. By using the relationship between galleries, auction houses and the public to create a unique platform between the primary and secondary market in the art world.

Our proposal cater for young artists who are starting out, who can't afford to pay to exhibit their work and who won't be on the auction radar the opportunities to showcase. As well as for the public who love art, and would like to support the artists but don't necessarily know where to see their work.

Our intervention area is located within RA and the Cork Street, with crossing between New Bond Street and Burton Street. Starting from the RA and ending at St. George Street. We are going to identify negative spaces within the public realm, and create open spaces for our public, also to engage people with roads and pavements. As well as creating feasible spaces for newly established artists within urban blocks of the area.

We are going to reverse the imbalance of pedestrians and vehicles, by only allowing cars and vans to pass through our site at specific times, also creating accessible routes for the people at night-time.

“"Cities need three things to function: an economic purpose, places for people to live, and connectivity between the two ie. transport. But to truly succeed cities need a fourth element: culture" .”

site map Our site map shows the five well established galleries we identified along with existing art galleries and auction houses

Well established galleries Auction houses Art galleries

area of focus: cork street

proposed route start: RA end: St. George street

concept diagram This concept diagram illustrated the current relationship of the art world, for example artists mainly painters would graduated from RA, then entering the primary market where they can exhibit their work and the buyers and art dealers can purchase their work. Then in the secondary market artists can sell their work to auction houses and buyers can also trade within. We want to propose a new connection where the public can be involved into the trading.

ISSUES

1. High end galleries are unaccessible for young artists who are staring out and won’t be on the auction radar. Lack of community spaces for communal activities and exhibitions.

2. People who love art and would like to support young artist don’t know where to see their work.

3. Resources and exhibition spaces available are expensive.

4. Busy streets with vehicles during day time.

OPPORTUNITIES

underly issues and opportunities in mayfair

1. Engaging people with the public realm by reversing the imbalance of people and vehicles - routes during night & day time are different.

2. Create feasible spaces for artists, mainly painters.

3. Creating a platform between the primary and secondary market in the art world.

.g

st eo rg e st re et cork street

analysis diagram

W H E R E?

diagram identifying the courtyard spaces we want to use to interconnect our route

H O W?

arrows indicate where our public audience would access the area

the functions that we propose for our design spaces, it can also be viewed as strategies we want to propose for the area, to revive cork street

W H Y?

when it is night-time our route will be accessible from different directions, the arrows convers places where only pedestrians will be allowed

W H E N?

axonometric site map

proposal area A

1

2

view from cork street

semi-public courtyard

3

public courtyard

4

street gallery

*please see the numbers on the previous A3 drawing

street gallery The street gallery is the connection between the courtyard and the main street. To develop the Street Gallery, we occupy small part of the hotel at the ground floor. We try to guide people with curve wall and exhibition wall on the one side.

The young artist could show their work over there and the public will easy get in touch with the arts when they ass by. To accommodate with the Art Gallery, we adjust the hotel bar layout. It will be a gallery bar where people could have social meeting and enjoy the arts at the same time.

street gallery plan

public courtyard : art event The courtyard uses the negative space and it could occupy by the artist to show their outdoor projects. It could be a living space shared by the hotel, offices nearby, young artist workshops on the roof and the public. Art events could be hold regularly.

proposal area B

concept collage keywords: slot buildings urban blocks transparency

slot building : urban gap house

Proposal B uses the concept of urban gap housing to create a sense of transparency. You can see the building is situated at the beginning of Cork Street where the building is being transformed into a gap art gallery; the building serve as the entrance to our route, it is able to lead people coming out of the RA into an internal passage, the passage allows artists mainly mix-media artists to exhibit their work. It leads people to the auction house which eventually leads people into area A.

internal passage realisation Spaces for exhibiting large scale sculptures and installations, the passage starts from the ‘slot’ gallery and leads towards the auction house.

proposing the urban

‘slot’ gallery

the new urban image the openness of the gallery allows people to gather, individually or in groups. What use to be an office space is transformed into an eye-catching urban gallery building..

site model

the red blocks indicate our proposals

P R O P O S A L

B

P R O P O S A L

A

Figures

fig 1. En.wikipedia.org. 2020. Cork Street. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cork_Street> [Accessed 15 May 2020]. fig 2. FAD Magazine. 2020. Mayfair Art Weekend Relaunches In Collaboration With The Royal Academy Of Arts - FAD Magazine. [online] Available at: <https://fadmagazine.com/2017/02/21/227143/> [Accessed 15 May 2020].

mayfair art society.