SAM JACOB : EMPIRE OF ICE CREAM - BETTS PROJECT 100 CENTRAL STREET LONDON EC1V 8AJ +44 (0)20 7250 1512 WWW.BETTSPROJECT.COM
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BETTS PROJECT
100 CENTRAL STREET
LONDON EC1V 8AJ
+44 (0)20 7250 1512
INFO@BETTSPROJECT.COM
WWW.BETTSPROJECT.COM
SAM JACOB : EMPIRE OF ICE CREAM
Empire of Ice Cream
Sam Jacob
Every piece of architecture is a world. Each an empire within its own Empire of Ice Cream produces plans that will never be built, drawings
borders. But outside of these perfect islands of architecture the city that evolve according to their own patterns: A stream of consciousness
they make up renders them fragments. We experience them as frag- and a mania of production.
mented sequences of different worlds. And the city itself remains in
a constant state of construction and destruction. They might be maps of fragmented empires, half remembered
buildings, parts and fragments dissolving into one another, forming
Empires within empires, worlds produced between worlds, always in conglomerations and aggregations that breed but never settle. Felt tip
flux through the fleeting arrangements of things in space and time. pens trace their way across the graph paper leaving plans of enclaves
The city becomes an inescapable field of archeology and speculation and exclaves, borders and passageways, unified yet sprawling worlds
whose vanishing point is the end of the world. where everything is exactly the same but always different.
Most often architecture presents itself as a conscious choice, driven by
logic and intention. But equally, during its own long presence on the
earth it has become its own entity. We grow up in and amongst its syn-
thetic worlds. We learn how to live within the frames that it provides. Its
thresholds organise and structure us so that we are as much its prod-
uct as it is ours. Architecture produces us as much as we produce it.
We are so immersed within architecture that we have
absorbed into the deepest recesses of our psyche.
Internalised, its solid structures are remade as the psychic landscapes
of our imagination. In our dreams it’s form shatters and bifurcates, swelling
and eroding like tides, mapping our desires and fears, filled with mem-
ories and forgetfulness.
No.1, 2011
ink on graph paper
21 x 29.7 cm
No.2, 2011
ink on graph paper
21 x 29.7 cm
No.3, 2011
ink on graph paper
21 x 29.7 cm
No.4, 2018
ink on graph paper
21 x 29.7 cm
No.5, 2018
ink on graph paper
21 x 29.7 cm
No.6, 2018
ink on graph paper
21 x 29.7 cm
No.7, 2011
ink on graph paper
21 x 29.7 cm
No.12, 2019
ink on graph paper
59,4 x 84,1 cmNo.11, 2011—2018
ink on graph paper
59,4 x 84,1 cmNo.10, 2018
ink on graph paper
29.7 x 42 cmNo.8, 2018
ink on graph paper
29.7 x 42 cmNo.9, 2018
ink on graph paper
29.7 x 42 cmA False Description of the Thing Destroyed, 2015
1st century AD Roman Pottery Jug fragment, plasticine
29 x 26 x 16 cmA False Description of the Thing Destroyed, 2015
3rd Century BC Greek Ceramic Shard , plasticine
12 x 29 x 24 cmLenin’s Urn, 2015 compact foam, paint 54 x 27 x 27 cm
Conceived between 2011 and 2019, ‘Empire of Ice Cream’ is a series of ited by Vladimir Lenin – the communist politician that led Russia and then
thirteen meticulously filled graph paper drawings that show the remnants the Soviet Union from 1917 until 1924. The finial piece was 3D-scanned,
of architectural plans gathered from an assortment of historic and contem- enlarged and then carved on a computer-numerically-controlled (CNC)
porary referenes. These elements are sometimes grand and monumental, router to produce a faithful recreation of the original object. Two sculptures
others banal and generic, but all are summoned impromptu from Jacob’s both entitled ‘A False Description of the Thing Destroyed’ combine found
memory; segments from Ancient Greek temples, football pitches, something fragments from antiquity with fired plasticine, one a Roman pottery jug 1st
Meisian, parts of a church, orchards, fountains, straightforward corridors, century AD found amongst a ship wreck and the other a 3rd century BC
a chunk of Parliament, and a Buzzcock’s single cover are some examples. Greek ceramic shard.
Jacob first conceived the series in 2011 as part of an invitation to participate Sam Jacob is director of Sam Jacob Studio, established in 2014. The studio
in the second edition of San Rocco Magazine: ‘The Even Covering of the has just won the Victoria and Albert Museum’s competition for the transfor-
Field,’ which explored the idea of ‘the field is where we live’. In their own mation of its main entrance on Cromwell Road (planned to complete in
description of the field, these drawings investigate space as a sprawl of 2020). Forthcoming work includes a new mixed use building in London’s
fragments that stretch to the horizon. They probe contemporary space as an Hoxton, curation of The Lie of the Land at the Milton Keynes Gallery, a new
all-consuming territory, an inescapable terrain that encrusts the earth and public toilet in London’s West End and work for the National Collections
assimilates everything – the densities of cities, the grandest of monuments, Centre in Wiltshire.
the conventions of everyday life, everything built, and even what might be The studio’s recent projects include ‘Fear and Love’ at the Design Museum,
left of the wilderness. They are maps of empires with enclaves and exclaves, public realm design and cultural strategy for
borders and passageways, and ever-amalgamating components that make a south London market and the V&A’s first international gallery in Shenzhen.
up a sprawling world of conglomerations and aggregations.
Jacob’s work has been published and exhibited internationally including at
‘Empire of Ice Cream’ sits in a tradition that includes Piranesi’s “Campo Marzio” the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016 and 2014 (where, as part of FAT he
and Archizoom’s “No-Stop City”; drawings that elucidate architectural ideas was co-curator of the British Pavilion), ‘Spaces Without Drama’ at the Graham
as much as they do real places, and that give graphic form to concepts and Foundation (2017), Chicago, ‘A Very Small Part of Architecture’ in Highgate
sensations as much as physical structures. Cemetery (2016), the Chicago Architecture Biennial (2017) and ‘Disappear
Here’ at the RIBA Architecture Gallery, London (2018).
As Sam Jacob describes:
Sam Jacob is currently a professor at University of Illinois at Chicago and
’Every piece of architecture is a world. Each an empire within its
visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong and has taught at Yale,
own borders. But outside of these perfect islands of architecture
Karlsruhe HfG and the AA in London where he also established AA Night-
the city they make up renders them fragments. We experience
school, a programme that opened up new ways of sharing of architectural
them as fragmented sequences of different worlds.
knowledge. He has been a columnist for the AJ, Art Review and Dezeen
And as the city itself remains in a constant state of construction
and is the author of ‘Make It Real, Architecture as Enactment” published by
and destruction.’
Strelka Press.
Jacob’s synthesis of fragmented structures and half-located memories take Previously he was a founding director of FAT Architecture, a practice that was
physical form through the three sculptures in the exhibition. They were ini- hailed as “changing the architectural weather” for its idiosyncratic approach.
tially conceived for the exhibition ‘pieces’ at the Soane Museum in 2015 as a FAT’s built projects included the Heerlijkheid Hoogvliet in Rotterdam, A
response to the museum’s collection of ancient sculpture fragments. Lenin’s House for Essex with Grayson Perry, the BBC Studios in Cardiff and the Blue
Urn explores “the effect of history on objects,” and takes its cue from the House in Hackney.
shape of a Victorian railing finial outside the Tavistock Square house inhab-SAM JACOB
CV
Selected Projects
2019 Transformation of V&A Cromwell Road Entrance, London, DKUK 2, 2014 Graham Foundation Grantee
Gallery & Hair Salon, London 2012 Shortlisted Housing Architect of the Year
2018 Dido & Aeneas, Staging Design, Shatwell Opera, Somerset 2009 RIBA European Award: Heerlijkheid Hoogvliet
2018 Ideas Depot, Exhibition Design, Tate Liverpool 2008 World Architecture Festival: Heerlijkheid Hoogvliet shortlisted
2018 The Sun, Living With Our Star, Exhibtion Design, Science Museum, 2007 RIBA European Award for St Lucas Art Academy
London 2007 FX Best Museum: Museum of Croydon
2017 V&A Shekou, Exhibition Design, Shenzhen, China 2006 Architecture Foundation Next Generation Award
2017 The Stack for Mini Living, London Design Festival Landmark Project 2006 AR Future Project Award for Masterplanned Communities: New Islington
2017 DKUK, Gallery & Salon, London 2006 Best Public Housing Project: Brick Development Association Awards
2016 Fear And Love, Exhibition Design, Design Museum, London 2006 Regeneration Awards: Regeneration Partnership of the Year- Great Plac
2016 Dar Abu Said, Installation, Venice Architecture Biennale es, Urban Splash, FAT and Card room Estate
2015 MK Menhir, Public Art, Milton Keynes 2005 40 Under 40, Architects Journal
2015 Architecture Curator, ArDe, London 2003 Second Prize: Young Architect of the Year
2015 V&A East, Brief & Concept Development, London
2015 Cambourne Pavilion, South Cambs Selected solo exhibitions
2015 MK Menhier, Public Art Commission, Milton Keynes
2015 A House For Essex. Living Architecture, Essex 2018 Disappear Here, Architecture Gallery, RIBA, London
2014 Curator, British Pavilion, 14th Venice Architecture Biennale 2015 A Clockwork Jerusalem, AA Gallery, London
2012 Roath Basin Studios, BBC TV Studios, Cardiff 2014 A Clockwork Jerusalem, British Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Italy
2011 Middlehaven: 84 unit residential building, Middlesborough 2010 Ornament is Crime, MAK, Vienna
2009 Selfridges: Design of 3rd floor retail space, London 2009 Duplicate Array, Lucy Mackintosh Gallery, Lausanne
2008 Heerlijkheid Hoogvliet: Park and cultural centre Rotterdam, The 2006 In a Lonely Place: Florence Hall, RIBA, London
Netherlands 2006 All You Can Eat: Stroom, The Hague. NL
2007 St Lucas Art Academy, Boxtel, The Netherlands 2000 Kill the Modernist Within, Cube, Manchester
2006 Islington Square, affordable housing development, Manchester
2006 Museum of Croydon: Museum within listed building Selected group exhibitions
2002 Ten: Offices for advertising agency in Antwerp, Belgium
2001 The New Civic: Three public art installations, King’s Cross, London 2017 Spaces Without Drama, Graham Foundation, Chicago
1998 Kessels Kramer: Design of offices for advertising agency , Amsterdam 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial, USA
2016 Fragments, Soon Museum, London
2016 XYZ, Etage Projects, Copenhagen
Selected awards and competitions 2015 All Of This Belongs to You, V&A, London
2013 Book of Copies, AA Gallery, London
2014 AR Future Project Award, UIC VPAC proposal 2012 Museum of Copying, 13th Venice Architecture Biennale
2014 Shortlisted, FX Awards Exhibition Design 2012 Image for a Title: Placebo Effects in the Cultural Landscape, London2008 From Now to Eternity, Biscuit Building, London Teaching
2006 Gritty Brits, Carnegie Museum of Arts, Pittsburgh
2005 Intimate Space: MOT Gallery, London 2019 Visiting Professor, Hong Kong University
2004 Extreme Houses: Munich and Liepzig, Germany 2011 - Clinical Professor of Architecture, UIC, USA
2003 Home Time: British Council Exhibition of British Design in China 2018 Visiting Professor, Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karls
2003 International Architecture Bienalle: Sao Paulo, Brazil ruhe, Germany
2003 Sign as Surface, Artists Space, New York 2016 Visiting Professor, Yale University
2003 Architecture Biennale: Rotterdam, NL 2014 Visiting Professor, Yale University
2002 Trespassing – Shaping Spatial Practices, Secession, Vienna 2012 -2016 Director, Night School, Architectural Association, London
2001 Space Invaders: Lisbon/ Pasadena/Tokyo 2013- External Examiner, KTH School of Architecture, Stockholm,
2000 Manifesta 3, Ljubljana Sweden
2000 FAT, FOA, MUF: arc en reve, Bordeaux 2014 Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor, Yale University, USA
2009 - 2012 Unit Master, Architectural Association, London
Selected Books / Catalogues 2010 Bishop Professor of Architecture, Yale University, USA
2007 Louis I Kahn Professor of Architecture, Yale University, USA
2015 Chapter, The World of Charles and Ray Eames Catalogue, ed Catherine 2000 - 2004 Diploma Unit Master, University of Westminster
Ince, pub Thames and Hudson 1996 - 2000 Degree Unit Master, University of Greenwich
2015 Perspecta 48: Amnesia (MIT press)
2015 Radical Pedagogies : Architectural Education and the British Tradition,
eds.Daisy Froud & Harriet Harriss, RIBA Publishing
2015 Catalogue text, Formal Economies, Marte Eknæs, Dolon Books
2015 Introduction, The Politics of Flatness, Jimenez Lai
2014 A Clockwork Jerusalem, British Council / Vinyl Factory
2013 Landscape Futures, ACTAR / Nevada Museum of Art
2012 Make it Real: Architecture of Enactment, Strelka Press
2011 Radical Post Modernism. Editor (with Charles Jencks), AD
2010 Malfe, Bedford Press
2008 L.A.W.U.N Project 19: The Disreputable Projects of David Greene (ed. S.
Hardingham, AA Publications)
Perspecta 41: Grand Tour (MIT press)
2006 5 Codes: Architecture, Paranoia and Risk in Times of Terror (ed. S.
Trubey, Birkhauser)
2006 Perspecta 38: Architecture After All (MIT press)
2006 Making the Impossible Possible: The Dream of Flying. The Dream of
Paradise (ed. Claudia Weber, Gerlinde Schuller, Map One)
2006 Perspecta 37: Famous (MIT press)
2002 This is Not Architecture (ed. Kester Rattenbury, Routledge)Price list on demand BETTS PROJECT 100 CENTRAL STREET LONDON EC1V 8AJ +44 (0)20 7250 1512 INFO@BETTSPROJECT.COM WWW.BETTSPROJECT.COM
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