January 19, 2014,
House of Illustration, News 
One comment
The House of Illustration, a national arts charity of which I’m a Trustee, will soon open its doors to the public later this year.
The charity was founded and supported by Sir Quentin Blake and focuses on graphic illustration in all its forms with the aim to reach as wide an audience as possible through exhibitions, events and national programmes.
Our new location will be at 2 Granary Square in the heart of London’s King’s Cross.
The building in this picture was designed by Lewis Cubitt (1799-1883) in 1850 who was also the architect of the fabulous King’s Cross Station that was built in 1851-2. Over the past year the building (formerly known as Regeneration House) has been completely refurbished by John MacAslan and Partners, the award-winning architects of the spectacular new ticketing hall in near-by King’s Cross Station.
The small but perfectly formed building has some impressive architectural neighbours – Stanton William’s Central St Martins campus at the University of the Arts London to one side, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris‘s Google headquarters rising opposite, David Chipperfield’s One Pancras Square in sight and Sir Colin St John Wilson’s British Library on the horizon.
In the latest edition of Art Quarterly (Autumn 2013) the magazine says: “Throughout there is a palpable sense of urban planning carefully infused with real cultural ambition, for which developers Argent and master-planners Allies and Morrison must take much credit.”
As the House of Illustration, we are leasing the ground and lower floor of the building.
There will be more updates to follow on this exciting and ground-breaking arts project so do watch this space!
Watch Ardi’s film about the architecture of one of Birmingham’s most unusual and modern buildings to have been built in the last decade by clicking here
Great article. Can’t wait for the House of Illustration to open its doors! The field of illustration needs to be celebrated from the rooftops; it has played second fiddle to the world of Fine Art for far too long.