A Cass Architecture alumnus, Alex Scott-Whitby has been announced as the winner of the London Festival of Architecture’s Modern Maypole competition in the centre of London.
Date: 20 December 2017
A Cass Architecture alumnus, Alex Scott-Whitby has been announced as the winner of the London Festival of Architecture’s Modern Maypole competition in the centre of London.
The competition, organised by the London Festival of Architecture in partnership with the Northbank Business Improvement District, looks to create a contemporary maypole as a focus for public events and other activities on The Strand when the architecture festival returns to London in June 2018.
Alex’s maypole will stand outside the church of St Mary-le-Strand; the site of London’s largest maypole which was constructed after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and towered over the 17th century city. In 2018 the Modern Maypole will stand in a transformed cityscape, a reminder of how radically London’s skyline, character and identity have changed over the centuries.
Alex Scott-Whitby, in partnership with his son Mark Whitby who is an engineer and Director of WhitbyWood, has designed a complex tower of 32 golden maypoles, each representing a London borough. After the Festival, the poles will be donated to schools and community organisations across the capital, forming a legacy of new civic beacons for London for years to come.
Alex, who is Director of Scott Whitby Studio said: “We are delighted, humbled and tremendously excited to have won the Modern Maypole competition, as a team it means a great deal to all of us to have been tasked with the honour of creating a new structure on this hugely important London site. We hope that what we create will become a place for Londoners to meet, visitors to explore and a marker point that will help London forge its new identity.”
Three of the six shortlisted practices for the Modern Maypole competition were alumni of London Met’s Professional Diploma in Architecture RIBA Part II (now Architecture RIBA 2 MArch). Submissions by Thomas Randall-Page (with Benedetta Rogers and Cake Industries) and Maria Smith (Interrobang), along with Alex and Mark (ScottWhitbystudio and WhitbyWood) were shortlisted.
