Caruso St John

New Art Gallery Walsall

Caruso St John is an architectural firm established in 1990 by Adam Caruso and Peter St John.

The Practice

Caruso St John have gained an international reputation for excellence in designing contemporary projects in the public realm. The practice came to public attention with The New Art Gallery Walsall, a commission won in an international competition in 1995. From these origins in the visual arts, where a sensitivity to experience and context is required, the practice has extended its expertise and now works on a broad range of projects in the public and private realms. Current and past clients include Tate Britain, the V&A, English Heritage and the Arts Council of England, as well as European housing developers Trudo, the SBB (Swiss National Railways) and the Gagosian Gallery. Caruso St John aims to have a wide range of work at a variety of scales and want to resist the trend of increased size and specialisation that dominates contemporary architecture.

The practice is interested in the emotional potential and physical qualities of construction. This attitude has developed out a fascination for materials, backed up with an involvement in academic and office based research. Built projects incorporate this research and respond to their physical context and brief in unexpected ways. The projects stand out by resisting off the peg construction. Both the New Art Gallery, Walsall (2000) and the Brick House, London (2006) have been short listed for the Stirling Prize, the UK’s most prestigious architecture award, in recognition of this ambition.

The practice is international in its outlook and in its make up, with many of the staff, including the partners, involved in teaching in schools of architecture, such as the final year design studio at the University of Bath (2002-4). The office of approximately 20 work in an open studio in a 1930s factory building in East London which the practice converted to studio use for themselves in 2000.

Teaching

Both Adam Caruso and Peter St John have taught in architecture schools consistently throughout the lifetime of Caruso St John. Adam Caruso taught at the University of North London from 1990 to 2000, and was Professor of Architecture at the University of Bath from 2002 to 2005. He has been Visiting Professor at the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio, at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, at ETH Zürich, and on the Cities Programme at the London School of Economics. In 2011 Adam Caruso was appointed Professor of Architecture and Construction at ETH Zürich.

Peter St John taught at the University of North London from 1990 to 2000. He was a Visiting Professor at the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio, Switzerland from 1999 to 2001, and Visiting Professor in the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the University of Bath from 2001 to 2004. In 2005 he was a visiting critic at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. From 2007 to 2009 he was a visiting professor at ETH Zürich. He is currently an external examiner at the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture in Aberdeen and Cardiff School of Architecture, and running a design unit at London Metropolitan University (previously University of North London)

See also

Works

• Chiswick House Cafe (2010)
• Thomas Demand, Nationalgalerie (2009)
• Nottingham Contemporary (2009)
• Frieze Art Fair (2008–10)
• Downing College, Cambridge (2009)
• The Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood (2007)
• Spike Island Artists' Studios (2006)
• Gagosian Gallery Rome (2006)
• Gagosian Gallery Davies St (2006)
• Stephen Friedman Gallery (2005)
• Hallfield School (2005)
• Brick House (2005)
• Gagosian Gallery Britannia St (2005)
• Stortoget, Kalmar (2004)
• Coate House (2001)
• Barbican Concert Hall (2001)
• New Art Gallery Walsall (2000)
• Bankside Directional Signage System (1999)
• House in Lincolnshire (1994)

External links

• Practice website
• The New Art Gallery Walsall
• Digital edition of Caruso St John monograph published by El Croquis magazine