PROJECTS

POTTERS FIELDS PARK

Southwark

TOBY PATERSON

Powder Blue Orthogonal Pavilion

Toby Paterson (b. 1974) lives and works in Glasgow, UK and has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally including 'Generosity', Stroom Den Haag, The Hague (2007) and 'After the Rain', Curve Gallery, Barbican, London (2005)

He has recently completed a substantial commission for the façade of the new BBC headquarters in Glasgow (designed by David Chipperfield architects) and is about to embark on further significant projects in London and Bristol.

Toby Paterson's appreciation of architectural forms and structures developed from skate boarding around abandoned concrete buildings. From this perspective he experienced cities and buildings as spaces to navigate; a collection of isolated forms and surfaces that could then be translated into paintings and sculptures. He works in a variety of forms, from large-scale sculptural assemblages and architectural wall drawings to small paintings on paper and Perspex. Paterson's work explores the integration of art and architecture. He is influenced by his personal experience of the built environment, with a particular focus on post-war architecture and an interest in the processes of abstraction within visual art. nspired by the language of Modernist architecture his modular pavilion will introduce an new feature into the multifaceted landscape of the Southbank.

“The primary thought behind Powder Blue Orthogonal Pavilion is that it should be less a discrete ‘building' and more a sculptural collection and arrangement of planes that allow light and space to flow through and between them. The intention of making a form of modular drawing in space sets it one remove from the functional structures that surround Potters Fields Park.

My approach has been to introduce another ‘image' into the already rich, if linear, narrative of the riverside walk rather than try to develop a narrative or singular reading within the structure itself. I enjoy the idea of the pavilion being an open, interpretable and non-prescriptive form developed directly from the visual and formal vocabulary I've been using in my work for some time now. Reference points would include the optimistically light touch of the 1951 Festival of Britain, and in particular structures such as Erno Goldfinger's kiosk designs and the Regatta restaurant and as well as exhibition designs by Basil Spence, Berthold Lubetkin and Frederic Kiesler. Other more traditional park architecture, such as bandstands, kiosks etc., might also exert a background influence.

The ostensibly 'functionless' nature of the pavilion is really intriguing for me, particularly the notion of a building existing as nothing more than an exposition of itself, with its possible or potential uses hinted at but not ultimately interpretable. I hope this can be expressed through the contrast of visual lightness of construction and actual structural strength. I consider the pavilion to be a location in which any passerby may pause in the sun or in the shade, or alternatively shelter temporarily from the rain, and consider the variety inherent in their surroundings.” (Toby Paterson)

For more information about the artist www.themoderninstitute.com

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