Book launch, Milan
Caruso St John: Collected Works
Volume 2, 2000–2012
Spazio, Milano
7th December 2023
Milan's Spazio gallery and bookshop hosts an event to celebrate the publication of Caruso St John's Collected Works Volume 2. Adam Caruso will discuss the themes explored by the book, notably how the practice's work has been influenced by the architecture of 20th century Chicago and Milan.
Lecture and book launch, London
All buildings are beautiful
Collected Works Volume 2
Royal Academy, London
29th November 2023
Adam Caruso and Peter St John mark the launch of Caruso St John: Collected Works Volume 2 with a lecture at the Royal Academy.
The partners will discuss their experience of working with existing structures, from modestly scaled early work, to substantial projects such as Tate Britain and the Newport Street Gallery in London, Veemgebouw in Eindhoven and Royale Belge in Brussels.
Exhibition
What if?
Unbuilt Architecture in Switzerland
SAM Basel
25th November 2023 – 7th April 2024
Two competition-winning projects by Caruso St John feature in What if? Unbuilt Architecture in Switzerland. The exhibition at Schweizerisches Architekturmuseum Basel offers a glimpse of an alternative Switzerland with a showcase of significant unbuilt projects from across the country.
Planning permission has been granted for the conversion of a 19th century fertilizer factory at a former industrial site in Uetikon am See on the banks of Lake Zurich.
Planning permission has been granted for the redevelopment of the Twentieth Century Theatre —a Grade II listed former music hall on Westbourne Grove in Notting Hill— into a new venue for classical music.
Book launch, Zurich
Caruso St John: Collected Works
Volume 2, 2000–2012
Escher Wyss Platz, Zurich
19th November 2023
The launch of Caruso St John: Collected Works Volume 2, 2000–2012 will be marked with an outdoor launch event beneath the canopy of 301 Hardstrasse. The office building, designed by Caruso St John, stands in close proximity to Escher Wyss Platz, the intended site of the Nagelhaus, the public art project by Caruso St John and Thomas Demand, whose collaboration is one of the themes explored in the book.
The second floor of the Wiedikon Warehouse has been reorganised to welcome a new family member.
Exhibition
The Whole City
Hamburg Competitions and Procedures 2017–2023
Hamburg, Germany
23rd June – 14th July 2023
Several designs by Caruso St John feature in an exhibition by Hamburg's Department of Urban Development and Housing, presenting architectural competitions and procedures undertaken in the city from 2017 to 2023.
Tate Britain features prominently in the BBC's trailer for the 2023 series of its Saturday night dance show, Strictly Come Dancing.
Peter St John is joined by Dirk Sommers of Bovenbouw Architectuur for a talk on the practices' newly completed renovation of the Royale Belge insurance headquarters. The event is organised by Urban Brussels as part of the Urban Lunch series and features presentations of three milestone projects that have recently been undertaken in the city.
Construction has started on a new office building on Stampfenbachstrasse in central Zurich. The building, for multinational insurance company AXA, houses around 4,000 square meters of office space over seven floors.
The project for the renovation of the Royale Belge in Brussels has now completed. An opening event was held on 28th June, hosted by Mix – a new venue encompassing a hotel, restaurant, gym and co-working space. The food hall and terrace on the ground floor has also opened, creating a new destination for the Watermaal-Bosvoorde area of Brussels. The project’s diverse functions are brought together by the new hall and staircase which creates a new centrepiece for the iconic building.
This year Unit 12, led by Peter St John, investigated the theme of Second Life, in the context of the design of buildings. Based on the belief that almost everything can have a second life, the project intends to address London's pressing need for more housing and the complex solutions for the shortage of land. The proposals for the reuse and densification of existing post-war housing stock in South London show how this can be a better solution than redevelopment.
The Swiss Life Arena features in Swiss Performance 2023, Archithese's round-up of the best Swiss architectural projects from the past 12 months.
The Swiss Life Arena is reviewed in the March edition of Werk, Bauen Wohnen. Benjamin Muschg takes in the atmosphere at a sold-out game, as the ZSC Lions triumph over HC Davos, and describes the building's unconventional organisation and approach to minimizing energy consumption in use.
The Swiss Life Arena is featured in Casabella 944. Federico Tranfa introduces the project and discusses its key references – the ruins of an ancient mosque in Syria and the 18th century Guards Tent in the gardens of the summer palace at Drottingholm in Stockholm.
Published by Mack Books, The Triple Folly presents an account of the collaboration between Thomas Demand, Caruso St John, and textile manufacturers Kvadrat, which led to the construction of the new pavilion at Kvadrat's headquarters in Ebeltoft, Denmark.
Caruso St John has submitted a planning application for the conversion of a 19th century fertilizer factory at a former industrial site in Uetikon am See on the banks of Lake Zurich.
Project review
Building in Hamburg
In a talk for the Architecture Foundation, Associate Ben Speltz presents Caruso St John's work in Hamburg over the past decade, focusing on the practice's approach to working within the urban fabric of the city centre and introducing two recently completed projects, the Gortz Palais and Grosser Burstah Office Building.
Adam Caruso will be speaking on the theme of ‘Semper and Material Culture’, as part of the book launch for A New Agenda for Gottfried Semper. Alongside Elena Chestnova, Murray Fraser, Michael Gnehm, and Sonja Hildebrand, Adam will discuss the mid-nineteenth century’s emphatic interest in material history against the backdrop of the precariousness of a life in exile confronted with a globalised world.
Caruso St John has received the building permit for the AXA Office building, located on Stampfenbachstrasse in central Zurich. The building for multinational insurance company AXA houses around 4,000 square meters of office space over seven floors.
Construction is scheduled to begin in spring 2023, with a façade mock-up already completed for quality control of the materials and joints.
Lecture
Casabella Lectures
Adam Caruso in conversation with Federico Tranfa
Milan, Italy
8th May 2023
Adam Caruso will be in conversation with Casabella’s editor Federico Tranfa at the Theatro Milano for the magazine’s annual lecture series. The discussion will focus on the design process, exploring projects like the recently completed Swiss Life Arena.
A publication charting the 14 year process of designing and building the Swiss Life Arena has been published by Park Books.
The book is by CCTM Real Estate & Infrastructure AG, with contributions by Ariana Pradal, Marco Keller, and Claudia Kaufmann-Morf, as well as photographs by and Philip Heckhausen.
Sofie De Caigny, director of the Flanders Architecture Institute, reviewed Caruso St John's Collected Works: Volume I for Drawing Matter. She discusses the book's choice to submerge the reader into the cultural sphere of the end of the 20th century, through contemporary texts, lectures and references.