Galleries
We work with galleries on new spaces, renovations, offices, archives, furniture and exhibitions. Will Pirkis led projects for Gagosian over several years with Caruso St John, working with directors and technicians on gallery spaces and back-of-house operations. These projects include locations in Hong Kong, in London at Britannia Street and Grosvenor Hill, and ongoing support for shows and off site events such as Frieze.
Grosvenor Hill is Gagosian’s largest London gallery, showing work by influential modern and contemporary artists including Cy Twombly, Ed Ruscha, Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, Helen Frankenthaler and Jonas Wood. The galleries are naturally lit by large windows to the surrounding streets, and by an illuminated ceiling developed with Arup Lighting. LED arrays behind the glass can be used with fixed settings, or linked to the changing lux level and colour temperature of the sky outside. They provide even wall illumination, with or without track lighting, allowing a high level of curatorial flexibility. The gallery is a not entirely abstract environment that can accommodate different kinds of exhibitions, with a rich floor of oak end grain blocks, and long, high hanging walls making room like spaces.
Artist Support
We work with artists to source, adapt and make the spaces they need to develop their practice and relationships with galleries. We provide ongoing support to studios with spaces, renovations, lighting, art storage and exhibitions.
Artist Studio, Bermondsey
The project converts a 900sqm warehouse in south London into a studio, for an artist represented by Gagosian. Developed with Westgreen Construction, London Structures Lab and services engineer Richie Daffin, the studio allows the artist to work on large canvases, with a growing team of technical and archivist staff. It provides facilities for display, conservation storage, offices and private viewing.
The warehouse is lined in white painted wood and new spaces are made at different scales, building on the spatial implications of the existing concrete frame. The painting studio occupies the thirty metre length of the building, and is distanced from the entrance by the supporting spaces, creating varying degrees of privacy.
The warehouse was built in the early 1980s with a precast concrete structure and cavity blockwork. To allow the building to be heated, the shell is insulated, with an air source heat pump feeding radiant panels. These are ceiling mounted, to maintain a clear wall-plane. LED installations provide gallery-specification lighting, while large new rooflights introduce daylight, improved thermal performance and ventilation.
Artist Collaborations
Will has worked with artists over several years of practice. With Caruso St John he worked with Rachel Whiteread, Thomas Demand and Marcus Taylor on exhibitions, installations and permanent works. His work with Thomas Demand included exhibitions at the Chicago Architecture Biennial and Museum Leuven, and a permanent pavilion for Kvadrat in Denmark.
The pavilion is a permanent installation in the dune landscape surrounding the headquarters of the Danish textiles company Kvadrat. Will worked with Demand, Kvadrat, consultants and fabricators from 2017 to completion in 2022. Titled The Triple Folly, the pavilion joins other pieces in the landscape by Olafur Eliasson and Roman Signer, and contains spaces for dining, meeting and exhibition. The forms of the different parts come from everyday objects made from paper: a paper plate, a piece of folded legal paper, and an American soda-jerk's hat. Constructed in painted steel and fibreglass they have a model-like quality. The pavilion is Demand’s first building, and houses an artwork by Rosemarie Trockel, and fittings and furniture pieces designed for the building by Demand.
National Memorial to Journalists on the Frontline
In collaboration with artist Rut Blees Luxemburg and curator Aldo Rinaldi, Will Pirkis Architects made a proposal for a national memorial to journalists killed in conflict. The proposal, for a site on the edge of woodland at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, incorporates a specially commissioned photograph by the artist.
The photograph would depict a landscape marked by historical conflict, etched into precast panels mounted to a wall of local stone. Two grass mounds make a threshold and a space in front of the wall. The back is faced with insitu panels cast with imprints of branches from the Arboretum. The castings connect the memorial with the woodland site, evoking Albion and the act of bringing the horrors of war home.
Gagosian Grosvenor Hill with Caruso St John. Image Hélène Binet
An exhibition of new fin sculptures by Alex Israel at Gagosian Davies Street, 2026. Artwork © Alex Israel. Photography: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd.
Studio for an artist represented by Gagosian, Bermondsey, 2023
Studio for an artist represented by Gagosian, Bermondsey, 2023
The Triple Folly with Thomas Demand and Caruso St John. Image Nic Tenwiggenhorn
Existing flora
The front of the memorial with etched photograph and landscape mounds
The back of the memorial cast with imprints of branches