Studio Banana TV interviews British architect Tony Fretton, principal of Tony Fretton Architects.
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Tony Fretton Architects was founded in 1982 and is now headed by partners Tony Fretton and James McKinney. The buildings completed by the practice in London for the Lisson Gallery in 1986 and 1992 continue to be internationally recognised as exemplary spaces for art, for the architectural experiences they offer and for their social engagement with the surrounding city. The three aspects – exemplary functioning, rewarding experience and productive engagement with the locale – are the underlying motifs in all the subsequent work.
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Following the Lisson Gallery came a number of regional arts buildings that combine international quality art spaces with a strong social programme: ArtSway centre for visual Arts in Sway Hampshire 1996; Quay Arts Centre for visual and performing arts in Newport Isle of Wight in 1998; and the Camden Arts Centre in London 2004, where the café and garden are established as places for sociability in the neighbourhood and London as a whole. Fuglsang Kunstmuseum in Southern Denmark, the practice’s most significant building for the display of art, opened in January 2008 and has been shortlisted for the prestigious Stirling Prize Building of the Year 2009.
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Tony Fretton’s work in the arts also extends beyond gallery buildings. Studios for artists have been realised at ArtSway and Faith House, House and Studio for Two Artists in Clerkenwell, 2005 and the studio for Brad Lochore in Shoreditch, 2008. Houses for collectors and artists comprise the Red House (2001) and the House for Anish and Susanne Kapoor (2008), both in Chelsea London.
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Beyond the art-related buildings, Tony Fretton has developed a series of outstanding projec and a new Administrative Centre in Deinze, Belgium in 2009.
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An active writer and lecturer, Fretton is Professor, Chair of Architectural Design & Interiors at Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands and was Visiting Professor at EPFL Lausanne in 1996, the Berlage Institute Amsterdam 1997 and the Graduate School of Design, Harvard USA from 2004-5. In 2010-11 he will be visiting professor at ETH Zurich on sabbatical from TU Delft.
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Special thanks to Rumina Haji from Claire Curtice and to Tony Fretton himself.
Interview by Studio Banana TV. Translation by Noelia Correa.
