2G N.46
Tony Fretton Architects


Involved in huge commissions through out the world, the great British architecture offices international corporations, almost are the ones that have received most media attention over the last couple of decades. In such a context of gigantic companies it is worth pointing to the consistent, high-quality work of medium-sized offices that, with much painstaking effort, have managed to construct a great many excellent buildings. Outstanding among them is the output of Sergison Bates (2G n.34) and the present monograph devoted to Tony Fretton's studio.

Founded in 1982, Fretton's office has its starting point in the exploration of the social possibilities of architecture. Through a careful observation of reality (client, programme, city) Fretton designs buildings rooted in their surroundings, with an ability to put across an idea of community. His architecture does not have spectacular form as its aim, but rather the composure and human well-being that binds man to the essential aspects of life. The notion of architecture as social art is ultimately materialised in a sophisticated spatiality executed with enormous precision and material quality, thus reflecting the architect's interest in the visual arts.

This number of 2G presents a number of recent projects by Tony Fretton, not only in Great Britain (the Red House or the house for Anish Kapoor), but also in Holland (where in 2008 he will finish three important projects for multi-family housing), Poland (the British Embassy in Warsaw) and Denmark (where a housing project in the centre of Copenhagen is worth highlighting, along the Fuglsangmuseum in Lolland).


30 x 23 cm
146 pp páginas ilustradas en color
texto: english/español
Publicación trimestral
ISBN: 978-84-252-2245-0

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Table of contents:

Drawing upon: the work of Tony Fretton by Mark Cousins
Of buildings and people by Martin Steinmann

Works and projects
The Red House, London
Holton Lee, Faith House and artist´s studios, Holton Heath, Poole
Constantijn Huygensstraat mixed-use building, Amsterdam
Camden Arts Centre, London
Andreas Ensemble housing, Amsterdam
House for two artists, London
De Prinsendam housing, Amsterdam
AG Leventis Gallery and apartments, Nicosia
Museum, theatre and social centre, Vejle
Vassall Road housing, London
Institute of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Arts, University of Bath
Kapoor House, London
First scheme for the new British Embassy in Warsaw
New British Embassy, Warsaw
Building in Tietgens Grund, Copenhagen
Fuglsang Kunstmuseum, Lolland
Erste Bank Headquarters, Vienna

Biography

nexus
Strategies for the present by Tony Fretton



Excerpt from the introduction:

'Drawing upon: the work of Tony Fretton

The work of Tony Fretton raises questions that are awkward in terms of the current culture of architectural criticism and theory. The first question is so obvious that it is not obvious-what is it exactly that architects design?-where this question must be answered architecturally rather than philosophically or conventionally. Secondly, where do architects design for? Again this is a question that should be answered architecturally rather than in terms of the site or in terms of the building as an installation. Thirdly, who or what do they design for? Where the answer to the question can neither be as narrow as the client nor as broad as 'society'. Such questions provide me with an entry to his work. It will be plain that it is driven by my interest and my pleasure, but the issue goes beyond that to touch upon what distinguishes his work from so many of his contemporaries and sets him in a certain tension with contemporary architectural culture.

Take the first question: what do architects design? There are a number of possible answers. Some will say 'buildings', yet others will insist that not all buildings are architecture. Others will say architects design 'period', and that there is no longer any compelling reason to divide the field of design, especially in a digital age whose powerful technologies are indifferent to the object of their design. Still, the idea of a building probably remains the lowest common denominator as an answer. The building (just) remains the object, or one might say the unit, of architecture. It is the thing that is still elevated, the identifiable achievement of the architect; it is by the architect. Now, this leaves out all sorts of problems, chiefly that the image of the architect that is implied leaves out the reality of both the collective worker known as the 'office' and the problems of the term 'identifiable'. Recently, this has spun a complex web of concern with signature, branding and aesthetic problems of recognition. Leaving these to one side, the building still has a number of problems: the empirical reality of a building has to bear the logical weight of seeming to be the thing, a whole. This logic of attention goes back to Aristotle, for whom what was important was how the parts collaborate in the service of the whole. The 'whole' supplies a principle of judgment, including that of design, as to how the parts realise the 'whole'. As a logic it compels the distinction between interior and exterior, starting with the very fact that there obviously is an interior and an exterior. They themselves must realise the whole. This arrangement of thought, for the thought pre-dates the reality, sets a certain template for the very existence of the building.

Two subsequent issues flow from this, both of which must be included before directly addressing Tony Fretton's work, although both of them relate closely to it. The first is the room. In modern architecture rooms seem to be divisions of the interior space of a building. Whatever functional or programmatic roles they are assigned, they are represented as divisions, so that by their addition they add up to the interior totality. They are close to, a part of, the total interior space. Often the architect will underline that through proportion-ality and regularity, and stylistic consistency, the interior is seen to embody the interior. The second issue relates to the exterior and the fact that the building is thought to have a place or a 'context', and that the building should manifest a relation to this whether in terms of conformity or occasionally transgression. The strategies for 'being in place', whatever they may be, tend to have a certain contradictoriness; for the building to be there and so have its integrity as a whole, it must be itself and not quite itself (...)'


Copyright of the text: the authors
Copyright of the edition: Editorial Gustavo Gili SL