10 x 10 Drawing the City

One hundred celebrity architects and artists, including Lord Foster, Zaha Hadid and Jake & Dinos Chapman, have all been let loose in London’s West End with pens, pencils, paintbrushes & sketchpads. Their diverse artistic interpretations of the cityscape has been brought together in a unique exhibition that is entitled 10 x 10 Drawing the City and runs for two weeks from November 1st to November 13th at Somerset House on the Strand.

On November 14th, the event culminates in a live auction, when the artworks will be sold off for the benefit of Article 25, the charity set up by UK architects for “building solutions to global problems”. A live auction of 25 selected pieces will take place at Somerset House at 6 pm and a silent auction of the remaining 75 pieces will be conducted throughout the exhibition and live auction.

What makes 10 x 10 unique as an exhibition format is that an area of the city is divided up into 100 identical squares by overlaying a notional grid. And then each “square” is allocated to a different participant, who can interpret what is to be found there in any visual way he or she pleases. The exhibition is the brainchild of architect Tim Makower, who pioneered it last year in the City of London on behalf of Article 25. This year it is the turn of the West End including Covent Garden. The result of this union of the individual and the collective is, in Makower’s words, “a snapshot of the city made up of one hundred personal viewpoints.”

The exhibition 10 x 10 Drawing the City London will be open every day until November 13th from 10 am to 6 pm in the West Wing Galleries, Somerset House.