ABOUT HYPHA STUDIOS

Also founded in 2021, young charity Hypha Studios have become a huge force in Britain’s cultural ecosystem. Put simply, they open up empty high street and commercial spaces and offer them to artists to use for free following a free-to-apply open call for each space. Usually, these spaces are used for exhibitions, but increasingly Hypha Studios also offer making and studio spaces.

recessed.space have previously reported on the charity. Back in October 2023 we wrote about the work the charity was doing (see 00137), while earlier that year we wrote about the work of Kinga Oktabska, an artist who had been given free studio space in Battersea, London (00129).

Since then the charity has grown. In fact, since founding in 2021 they have awarded free space to nearly 2,000 artists in 64 locations in England, Wales, and Scotland, supporting 105 exhibitions in that time – from a small Victorian parade unit in Penrith to a vast warehouse in Wrexham – with over 36,000 members of the public coming to see exhibitions and events artists and curators have organised.

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WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

We are looking for applications from architects, artists, or curators who want to put on an exhibition that speaks to the architecture, landscape, or the built environment in some way. If you have been reading recessed.space for the last 280 articles, you will know there is a wide range of ways that this can take place and we want that kind of breadth in the year of exhibitions we select for our gallery in No.1 Poultry.

You may already be a group of artists making work that speaks to the city or our built world. Perhaps you are architects that want to collaborate with creatives of other mediums on a project. Maybe you want to use this as an excuse to develop new work and ideas that speak directly to the context of the City of London or even James Stirling’s No.1 Poultry itself.

The space is about 130m² and – as with all Hypha Studios’ former commercial units – has spatial quirks and characteristics that can really help make an exhibition feel different to a white-wall gallery hang. However, the space will be tidied up, painted, and have new window vinyl added, so it will look extremely professional and be a great showcase for your project to the packed streets of Bank and the City of London.

The three Hypha Studios spaces are at ground level, street-facing, and are set back from the road behind the colonnades. Gallery 2, which will be the Hypha Studios x recessed.space gallery, is a former café. It has a shallow depth with a row of recesses and some of the wall has a vertical, timber slats.

There is also a back room, formerly the kitchen, which could act as an excellent space video or immersive work, or as an extension to normal gallery presentation. There is a toilet and kitchenette, and the service counter will remain in place and function as your desk for invigilation and servery for the private view and events.

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Hypha Studios award you the space for free. In return you will curate and invigilate your exhibition, and you are free to sell your work if you so wish.

You should open the gallery a minimum of four days a week and organise some public-facing events alongside your exhibition – as well as the opening party, these could include talks, screenings, walking tours, or anything that speaks to your idea and practice.

As well as awarding you the space for free, Hypha Studios will support promotion of your exhibition and events and there will be an article about each exhibition published on recessed.space.

recessed.space will select exhibitions for a whole year, with the first three slots to take place from September:

slot 1: Sept – Oct (inc. Frieze Week)
slot 2: Oct – Nov
slot 3: Nov – Dec

Applications should come from a lead artist or curator, but should include more than one creative in the planned exhibition, ideally a group.

Applications should be made through the Hypha Studios website HERE before 6pm, 04 August.

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ABOUT NO.1 POULTRY

While No.1 Poultry is considered a globally important piece of architecture, and the masterpiece of architect James Stirling who passed away five years before its 1997 completion, it only emerged into the City due to the cancellation of what would have been another grand project from another iconic designer.

In the 1960s, property developed Peter Palumbo commissioned Mies van der Rohe to design an office building to replace a corner site he had purchased facing the Bank of England which then had an 1870s John Belcher-designed building on, housing crown jewellers Mappin and Webb.

Mies’ scheme would have seen a tall glass and bronze tower facing a wide public plaza, echoing the architects’ celebrated Seagram building in New York.

What would have been his only British scheme was awarded planning permission in 1969, though Mies died the same year so never came to see his project erected, with Prince Charles – as he regularly did – stepping away from royal protocol to publicly denounce what he considered “just another glass stump”. In a long-running dispute, the scheme was finally completely rejected and withdrawn in 1985.

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Palumbo took a new approach, appointing postmodernist architects James Stirling and Michael Wilford to design a new scheme. Their approach drew inspiration and reference from surrounding architecture, especially that of Nicholas Hawksmoor’s St Mary Woolnoth church, a building also addressing the Bank junction and which, like No.1 Poultry, is a composition of geometric form, massing, and civic presence in the street.

The design also drew inspiration from the nearby Midland Bank by Edwin Lutyens, while the façade incorporates Victorian friezes by French sculptor Joseph Kremer taken from a nearby demolished building.

No.1 Poultry was completed by Michael Wilford & Associates, the firm that had developed from James Stirling’s, and has since been granted Grade 2* listing – making it one of the youngest buildings with such a heritage status. Externally, it is singularly recognisable by stripes of pink and brown sandstone, grids of glazing, a ship-like entrance into the junction, and covered colonnades.

There is an internal, publicly accessible, courtyard clad in bright blue ceramic tiles with multicoloured window frames, while a roof garden offers views across the City. A long, gradual staircase leads up from the prow of the building towards a first floor loggia that wraps the internal courtyard, rarely now used but intended by Stirling as a theatrical, ceremonial entrance akin to that of a temple or the Vatican’s Scala Regia.

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