One of the most exciting and innovative contemporary architectural practices, Alison Brooks Architects, is the subject of an upcoming exhibition at Clare Hall. Models, mounted on pedestals, drawings and photographs represent 20 years’ work and include major building projects, such as that recently completed at Exeter College, Oxford. All are on show in Clare Hall’s main building, designed by Ralph Erskine, an Englishman who established a practice in Sweden and became part of Scandi Modernism. His work and that of Alison Brooks establish an immediate connection, through a sympathetic use of materials, an interest in simplicity and a desire for architecture that relates to a way of life and the needs of those who live or work in it.
Each of the displayed works demonstrates Alison Brooks Architects’ ability to reveal and translate social histories, urban archetypes and iconographies into contemporary space and form; at the same time, they celebrate locality and craft with a tectonically inventive architecture.