Events

The T- House

Venue: Watch this space for updated information over the coming months.

T-House is a collaborative project between artist Colin Pearce and architect Ranbir Lal, who will be working together to design a transportable and flexible building to do exactly what its name says – be a place of conversation or contemplation. This installation will be an innovative and contemporary construction whose design and detailing may be initially informed by some of the better known international traditions of “taking tea”, but will take a fresh and modern approach.

The simplicity of the tea-room and its freedom from vulgarity make it truly a sanctuary from the vexation of the outer world…Nowadays industrialism is making true refinement more and more difficult the world over. Do we not need the tea-room more than ever?

Ch. 4 The Tea-Room.
The Book of Tea, Kakuzo Okakura.1906

The first element of T-House is a free-standing sculptural work, which will be located on a highly prominent redevelopment site at the corner of Priory Queensway and Moor Street Queensway, one of the most publicly visible sites in the city, served and passed by 70% of bus services. Passing pedestrians and waiting bus users will have access to the sculpture, and its first use as a fore runner of the festival of Extreme Building will attract additional visitors.

Pearce and Lal’s previous collaborations include the daring architectural lighting proposal Transformation: Re-Lighting Spaghetti Junction, a project for Birmingham’s Capital of Culture Bid and The Navigators, a proposal for lighting the Digbeth Branch Canal for British Waterways.

T- House will be initially closely linked with the proposed Festival of Extreme Building planned for Spring and Summer of 2007, and will then be moved to a temporary location within Eastside. It is anticipated that the structure will ultimately be sited within the new Eastside Park, scheduled for development in 2008/9.

Watch this space for updated information over the coming months.