It seems like only yesterday that Alex Chinneck was giving a dilapidated house in Margate, England a curious half-fallen façade, but the madcap designer is at it again, pulling the same manner of architectural shenanigans on an abandoned building in the London borough of Southwark. Constructing a new faux-façade on top of a disused livery stable built in the 1780s, Chinneck gave the place a seeming renovation, but flipped 180 degrees, as if by a planning mix-up on a nearly unheard-of scale. "I'm conscious that when a person walks through the doors of an art gallery they do so through choice, but people do not make that choice when presented with public sculpture," Chinneck told Dezeen. "I wanted to create an artwork therefore that offered spectacle but was simultaneously subtle and by using the material and architectural language of the district the artwork has the ability to disappear into its environment without dominating it." He does have a point: this kind of project would seem a tad on the gimmicky side if it weren't for the attention to detail. Meanwhile, across the pond, what's happening to our own façades is seriously no joke.
The Video:
· London building turned upside down by Alex Chinneck [Dezeen]
· All Abandonment Issues posts [Curbed National]