Caruso St John: Diorama

Betts Project presented Diorama, an exhibition of British architects Caruso St John. The exhibition shows a selection of models for competitions as well as the model of their recent Stirling Prize winner project, the Newport Street Gallery.

  The 1:50 models in pastel colours belong to buildings the architects worked on during the last few years. Their focus lies on the exterior: the facades are at, windows and doors are marked by coloured surfaces. Because of these details, the models have a strong pictorial quality, while at the same time their spatial dimension is underlined by thick layers of paint. Exhibited together on a large table, the models show a kind of imaginary Caruso St John-city. In Adam Caruso’s words: “The buildings that are represented in the models are very different, but we have used only five colours to represent all of their details. This serves to bring together their diverse forms and scales.”

The photographs on the wall are insights into the interior of models Caruso St John have been making for the last 25 years. Thus they remind of the dioramas of the 19th century, three-dimensional models that show a situation in a way that looks real. Adam Caruso describes the nature of the model photographs as follows: “They show a world where the atmosphere of our buildings are explicitly evoked at the same time as being uncanny as to the actual size and material of the models, models that have been only made to produce these images.”

until 25 February 2016
Caruso St John: Diorama
Betts Project
100 Central Street, London