ABOUT TEAM STUDENTS BRIEFS ADMISSION
11th December 2025 – 17th January 2026, 12 – 6pm
PRIVATE VIEW 6pm – 9pm 11th December
Hypha Gallery 2
No 1 Poultry
London EC2R 8EN
The Bank of England in Ruins is an exhibition about architecture, ruins, value, and money. The gallery is in the heart of the City of London’s financial district, sited in James Stirling's postmodernist building No1 Poultry, opposite the actual Bank of England.
The exhibition responds to this context of architecture and finance through the lens of a drawing by Joseph Gandy showing John Soane’s design of the Bank of England. Soane’s building had only recently been completed, but Gandy’s drawing (1830) shows the bank in ruins after some unspecified future catastrophe.
The strangeness of depicting architecture (and a key edifice of the British state) as a ruin is the starting point for a collection of different projects. These also respond to Soane and Stirling’s interest in fragmentation and reassembly, the reuse of pieces of history to construct possible futures.
Architecture here is thought of as a product of varied and conflicting value systems: Economic value, symbolic value, use value, social value and so on. Buildings are caught up in the exchange of value in many ways: Architecture can be a symbol of value (eg the temple or the skyscraper as the image of a bank, or buildings used on bank notes), its value can be an economic asset, traded in the market, backed by loans, atomised into credit default swaps and other complex financial instruments. Architecture is the physical site where competing ideas of value are exchanged. Both the product of tensions and contradictions between different value systems and a means to imagine other possibilities.
Contributions by:
Aslı Çiçek, Bamidele Awoyemi, CAN, David Kohn, DRDH, Drawing Architecture Studio, Fala, Hugh Strange, Jamie Foubert, Joseph Zeal Henry, Kuehn Malvezzi, Madelon Vriesendorp, Maria Lisogorskaya, Mary Duggan, MBL architects, MOS, Muoto, Nigel Coates, Paradigma Ariadné, Paul Anderson, Peter Wilson, Pier Paolo Tamborelli, Piovenefab, Point Supreme, Sam Chermayeff, Sean Griffiths, Sergison Bates, Shahed Saleem, Space Popular, Supervoid, Witherford Watson Mann
Studio Jacob: Sam Jacob
Production Team: Allen Bell, John Clayson, Eda Sefa
Team: Hoda Balouchi, Christiane Braml, Yurii Brytov, Mihaela Carpov, Anzhelika Chernytska, Meltem Çinar, Philip Emrich, Lucia Flir, Mohammad Sajad Ghaderi, Mariia Gross, Melika Hadjarzadeh, Igor Ivanec, Ali Jafari, Asal Kavianifar, Miku Kawai, Erfan Khosravi, Jonathan Kielhorn, Mintong Lu, Joel Nikles, Marlene Ortner, Jonas Ramoser, Mikael Ristmets, Byron Hayes Roberts, Xaver Roos, Anastasiia Seergeva, Matthew Simpson, Lærke Nolsø Pommersgård Virkelyst, He Yan, Zhongzheng Zhang
Supporting Faculty: Gerhard Brandstötter, Philipp Frei, Sophie Grell, Benno Groer, Eldine Heep, Karl Holzer, Afshin Koupaei, Reinhold Krobath, Thea Möller, Giacomo Pala, Roman Speiß, Mathias Leberbauer, Sophie Luger
Kindly supported by Hypha Studios, recessed.space, Cheapside, Sir John Soane’s Museum and the Institute of Architecture / die Angewandte, Vienna.
1. Exchange Rate Mechanisms (after Gandy)
2. Cadavre Exquis, Studio Jacob. Designers: Allen Bell, John Clayson, Philip Emrich, Joel Nikles, Jonas Ramoser, Xaver Roos, Eda Sefa. Manufacturing: Allen Bell, John Clayson, Mintong Lu, Xaver Roos, Eda Sefa.
Assisting Faculty: Philipp Frei, Afshin Koupaei
3-4. The Bank of England in Ruins, Studio Jacob. Credits: Manufacturing Lead: Allen Bell, Eda Sefa, Team: Hoda Balouchi, Christiane Braml, Yurii Brytov, Mihaela Carpov, Anzhelika Chernytska, Meltem Çinar, John Clayson, Lucia Flir, Mohammad Sajad Ghaderi, Mariia Gross, Melika Hadjarzadeh, Igor Ivanec, Ali Jafari, Asal Kavianifar, Erfan Khosravi, Jonathan Kielhorn, Mintong Lu, Joel Nikles, Marlene Ortner, Jonas Ramoser, Mikael Ristmets, Byron Hayes Roberts, Matthew Simpson, Lærke Nolsø Pommersgård Virkelyst, Zhongzheng Zhang, Assisting Faculty: Benno Groer, Karl Holzer, Afshin Koupaei.
5. Souvenirs, Studio Jacob. Design/Manufacturing: Allen Bell, Mihaela Carpov, John Clayson, Miku Kawai, Mintong Lu, Xaver Roos, Anastasiia Seergeva, Eda Sefa He Yan, Supporting Faculty: Roman Speiß
2. Cadavre Exquis, Studio Jacob. Designers: Allen Bell, John Clayson, Philip Emrich, Joel Nikles, Jonas Ramoser, Xaver Roos, Eda Sefa. Manufacturing: Allen Bell, John Clayson, Mintong Lu, Xaver Roos, Eda Sefa.
Assisting Faculty: Philipp Frei, Afshin Koupaei
3-4. The Bank of England in Ruins, Studio Jacob. Credits: Manufacturing Lead: Allen Bell, Eda Sefa, Team: Hoda Balouchi, Christiane Braml, Yurii Brytov, Mihaela Carpov, Anzhelika Chernytska, Meltem Çinar, John Clayson, Lucia Flir, Mohammad Sajad Ghaderi, Mariia Gross, Melika Hadjarzadeh, Igor Ivanec, Ali Jafari, Asal Kavianifar, Erfan Khosravi, Jonathan Kielhorn, Mintong Lu, Joel Nikles, Marlene Ortner, Jonas Ramoser, Mikael Ristmets, Byron Hayes Roberts, Matthew Simpson, Lærke Nolsø Pommersgård Virkelyst, Zhongzheng Zhang, Assisting Faculty: Benno Groer, Karl Holzer, Afshin Koupaei.
5. Souvenirs, Studio Jacob. Design/Manufacturing: Allen Bell, Mihaela Carpov, John Clayson, Miku Kawai, Mintong Lu, Xaver Roos, Anastasiia Seergeva, Eda Sefa He Yan, Supporting Faculty: Roman Speiß
The base image was provided by the curators of the exhibition. Source: Archive reference: 15A13/1/3/11: IMAGE OF THREADNEEDLE STREET: BANK STOCK OFFICE WALL DEMOLITION, c. 1920