Volume 3 of Caruso St John’s Collected Works is out now. Between 2010 and 2020, Caruso St John expanded its reputation for sensitive and characterful architecture through a remarkable range of projects. Major buildings in the heart of Swiss, German, and Belgian cities explored the role urban landmarks can play in the present day, while smaller domestic projects provided the opportunity for experiments in restoration, materials, and colour. Transforming buildings for reuse – from beloved public institutions to long-abandoned industrial sites – became a focal point for the practice as it sought to emphasise its work with the existing rather than contribute to the escalating production of new construction. Their designs for memorials, exhibitions, and museums further developed this engagement with memory and an aliveness to the past.
The third volume of Caruso St John’s acclaimed Collected Works series covers this prolific period via a sequence of resonant themes. Projects are presented with extensive drawings, photography, and new commentaries, interleaved with competition entries, contemporary reviews, and material that inspired and informed the architects, including texts by Elizabeth Wilson and Grace Ndiritu and references from Alberti to Roger Diener and Pissarro to the Bechers. As a retrospective, the book is reflective, allusive, and critical, engaging with urgent contemporary questions while offering a close encounter with the mature work of one of the world’s most significant architecture practices.
Images © Mack Books.
Related news
This second volume in Caruso St John’s Collected Works is published this month by MACK. The publication traces an interlacing set of themes through the practice’s work over the first twelve years of the twenty-first century. Its unique approach to history is revealed as a rejection of the myth of relentless novelty in favour of an understanding of the past as present and an interest in working with the existing. The influences of Milan, Chicago, and Rome on understandings of the city are explored, as well as the use of ornament and the place of Switzerland in shaping the practice’s evolving trajectory. Throughout these contexts, collaborations with contemporary artists including Thomas Demand and Damien Hirst continue to shape the practice's relations to the materiality and drama of space.
The first volume of Caruso St John's Collected Works is published this month by Mack Books. The publication covers the first fifteen years of Adam Caruso and Peter St John's partnership, following a thematic course shaped around key phases and aspects of their thinking, and offering a detailed reflection on the practice’s activities between 1990 and 2005. Through a chorus of voices including critics, clients, and artists, it narrates Caruso St John's early emergence and development through to the international recognition which came with projects such as Nottingham Contemporary, the New Art Gallery Walsall, and the Brick House.
Following his January 5th lecture All Buildings are Beautiful at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Warsaw, Adam Caruso was in conversation with architect Aleksandra Czupkiewicz. A transcript of their discussion is published in the March edition of Architektura Murator.
St Pancras Campus is reviewed in the March edition of the RIBA Journal. Chris Foges speaks to Peter St John about the state of commercial development in London, discusses the building's contribution to its urban setting at the border of Kings Cross and Camden Town, and commends its rich detailing and high quality approach social housing.
Hospitalfield features in the third issue of Alder, a publication documenting Scotland's modern architecture, produced by the office of Mary Arnold-Forster.
Rowan Moore includes the new studio building at Hospitalfield features in his top five projects of 2024, calling it "a playful, expressive structure in which fun is had, in the tradition of Arts and Crafts architecture, with eaves, gutters, cladding and other basics of building".
Caruso St John are guest editors of Baumeister's annual curated issue. The issue is conceived as a reader, presenting a series of texts that have influenced the practice's recent thinking, including writing by Material Cultures, Grace Ndiritu, Barbara Buser, and David Holmgren.
St Pancras Campus is reviewed in the December issue of the Architects Journal. Rob Wilson visits the building with Peter St John and Rod Heyes and discusses its position in the emerging cityscape between the railway land of King Cross and the Victorian terraces of Camden Town.
Owen Hatherley takes an in-depth look at the first two volumes of Caruso St John's Collected Works for Sidecar, the blog of the New Left Review, charting the practice's origins in 1990s London and its 'principled refusal' of the tenets of the so-called starchitects that rose to prominence during that decade.
A+U magazine has published a second issue dedicated to the work of Caruso St John. The publication covers projects undertaken since 2015, with a particular focus on the practice's work with existing structures.
Publication
Mount Royal
Adam Caruso
In a publication presented by ETH Studio Jan De Vylder, Adam Caruso reflects on his experiences growing up in Montreal and family visits Mount Royal, the mountain located directly west of downtown and one of the city’s largest green spaces.
The Swiss Life Arena features in Swiss Performance 2023, Archithese's round-up of the best Swiss architectural projects from the past 12 months.