Public Art programme at Paddington Square

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A trailblazing public art programme of permanent and rotational artworks at Renzo Piano Building Workshop-designed Paddington Square

·       Works by artists Ugo Rondinone, Pae White and Catherine Yass, alongside a rotating outdoor art site for The Showroom gallery, launching with Kathrin Böhm.

·       The artworks are the first London-based outdoor public art commissions for all four artists.

Great Western Developments, owner of Paddington Square, unveiled four internationally significant public works of art by artists Ugo Rondinone, Pae White, Catherine Yass and a temporary artwork up for a year by Kathrin Böhm, today. 

This ambitious art initiative represents a major investment into the public realm by Great Western Developments, who commissioned the public art programme working in conjunction with leading London-based cultural studio Lacuna. 

Lacuna’s mission was to activate the site as a civic space and urban destination whilst presenting an exciting art programme, reflecting inclusivity and diversity of society and the arts community.  Lacuna’s curatorial approach was to be pro-active, not re-active and invest in long-term community engagement with local initiatives which resulted in the partnership with The Showroom. The result is a fully engaged and engaging programme which addresses the building in the round and utilises art as a signifier (Ugo Rondinone), as murals on St Mary’s hospital buildings (Catherine Yass and Kathrin Böhm) and incorporated into the building above the new underground station entrance (Pae White). A jury of international art experts worked alongside Lacuna to select Catherine Yass and Pae White’s works. 

The programme will deliver public art by critically acclaimed artists that, together with the wider Renzo Piano Building Workshop-designed Paddington Square site, provides a new working, shopping and dining quarter for West London and a world-class welcome to London for millions of domestic and international travellers who pass through Paddington and the Heathrow Express every year. 

Paddington Square is a light-filled crystalline building designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop that presents as a geometric cube – hence the name Paddington Square.  

The development spans 430,000 sq. ft with 350,000 sq. ft of office space across 14 floors. The building includes 33 retail units, four restaurants and a new tube station with a direct fully accessible step-free entrance to the Bakerloo line platforms. 

Justin Brand, Asset Director at Hotel Properties Ltd, said:

“From Brunel’s Railway to the Regent’s Canal, Paddington has always been a place of transition from London to the West of England – and now the world via the Heathrow Express. 

“Paddington Square creates a new gateway to London bringing together internationally excellent architecture and placemaking across public art, retail and dining brands to create an exciting new destination for London. 

“The role of public art has been central to Paddington Square from the outset. Here we can showcase works that respond to the space and the Paddington story. We created the public artwork to excite, enrich and inspire visitors and local people alike and foster a sense of connection and pride with Paddington Square and the ongoing story of the area as it changes and develops.

Stella Ioannou, Director, Lacuna, said:

“The Paddington Square public art programme acts as a conversation starter: to demonstrate and inspire the power,beauty, potential and responsibility of curating art in the public realm. Our curatorial approach takes its cues from the vision of GWD, together with Renzo Piano Building Workshop’s architectural ambition to bring one of London’s biggest transport gateways to life through public spaces and contemporary art. Lacuna conducted extensive research into the neighbourhood, working with local communities and engaging with a diverse set of stakeholders, greatly enriching our curatorial approach and the development of these landmark commissions with leading international artists.

While lockdown presented us with new challenges, it also allowed us to develop novel methods for critical engagement with the evolving cultural conversation, which visitors will see borne out in the final works. It is very exciting to see the project being realised and I very much hope the new artworks inspire conversation and debate. 

Artwork snapshot: 

·       Ugo Rondinone’s 5 metre orange yellow hermit sculpture addresses the dual reflection between the inner self and the natural world providing a new focal point for the millions of visitors travelling between Praed Street and Paddington station each year. Conceived from limestone models, the monumental work is cast in bronze after scans of the friable material are reconfigured into solid three-dimensional forms using digital tools. Rondinone responds to the stone’s natural, ancient origins in contemporary contexts and environments, opening up onto the world, to nature, and turning inward on oneself.

·       Pae White’s Somethinging, will float across levels of shops and restaurants both above and below ground, opening out onto a new public piazza and framing the entrance. Developed during lockdown, the piece suggests movement, lightness, dance, conviviality. Familiar patterns entwine and overlap with secret modules of colours revealing themselves and rewarding the viewer as they physically move around the piece.  These modules frame the sky and surrounds as two forms circle each other in a dance of suspended optimism. Somethinging, made across a span of two years is made up of X 1232 aluminium folded panels, X 8040 rivets and includes 20,000 folds of 11 colours. 

·       In celebration of and in homage to NHS workers, Catherine Yass’s large-scale collaborative photographic installation takes over a 24-metre-long wall on Tanner Lane - neighbouring St Mary’s Hospital. Photographed between Covid 19 restrictions, the image is constructed from over 200 photographs of ten NHS workers swimming underwater to make up a seamless whole, with the swimmers brought together in the print suspended on the wall overhead.  Partly inspired by Giotto’s angels in the Arena Chapel in Padua, Italy, the piece is made from sustainable vinyl and will be in place for 10 years. The swimmers were selected from an open call with Imperial College Healthcare Charity and represent the rich diversity of Saint Mary’s Hospital staff.

·       Launching on Tanner Lane on the corner of Praed Street, The Showroom presents Kathrin Böhm who asks: ‘Why do we care about art?’. Individual and collaborative responses to this question were explored through public poster-making and knowledge-sharing workshops at The Showroom.  Through assimilating, compiling, distilling and responding to the taped posters, slogans and statements created by workshop contributors, the final banner, designed in collaboration with An Endless Supply, projects the chorus of voices involved in this collaborative process. The Showroom’s rotating programme will continue in future years with two more commissioned artists: Long Distance Press (Adam Shield and Thomas Whittle) in 2025/26 and Harold Offeh in 2026/27.

A jury of leading experts were brought in to support the selection of the artists involved including Lucy Zacaria, Head of Arts at Imperial Charity Trust; Eleanor Pinfield, Head of Art on Underground; Shumi Bose, Curator at RIBA and Senior Lecturer in Architecture, Central Saint Martins; Andrea Schlieker, Head of Collections, Tate Britain; Edwin Heathcote, Architecture & Design Critic at the Financial Times; Elvira Dyangani Ose, Artistic Director of Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) and former Director of The Showroom; and Joost Moolhuijzen, Project Lead Architect and Partner, Renzo Piano Building Workshop.

Artist quotes:

Pae White “Somethinging, developed during lockdown, suggests movement, lightness, dance, conviviality. Familiar patterns entwine and overlap with secret modules of colours revealing themselves and rewarding the viewer as they physically move around the piece.  These modules frame the sky and surrounds as two forms circle each other in a dance of suspended optimism.” 

Ugo Rondinone “Stones have been a presence and recurring material and symbol in my art. They are the subjects of the stone figures that I began with the monumental human nature installation at the Rockefeller Plaza in 2013 followed by Seven Magic Mountains in the Nevada desert in 2016. orange yellow hermit will continue to address the dual reflection between the inner self and the natural world. Just as the external world one sees is inseparable from the internal structures of oneself, this work allows layers of signification to come in and out of focus, prompting the viewer to revel in the pure sensory experience of colour, form and mass while simultaneously engendering an altogether contemporary version of the sublime.” 

Catherine Yass: “Ten NHS workers are swimming underwater, overhead down Tanner Lane. They flow down this narrow road between Saint Mary’s Hospital and Renzo Piano Studio’s new office building, reflecting the stream of people moving through to catch trains and get to work. Photographed on large format sheet film, over 200 images are overlaid onto blue negatives to create a sense of movement and a deep blue space that leaves us floating down the street between water and sky. The swimmers were selected to correspond to the ethnicity, gender and age of the NHS workers in Saint Mary’s. Photographed between Covid restrictions, freedom of movement was a fabulous thing, and the break from the pressure of working in the hospital felt liberating. Up on the high wall the NHS workers appear to be flying as well as swimming, hovering over our heads like angels caring for the people below.”

Kathrin Böhm: "Art can be many different things to each of us, and the workshops “who cares about art” with local interest groups at The Showroom, made this very clear. It was important to hold a space where different meanings, practices, understanding and expressions were possible, and equal to each other. The one word and value we all care about is freedom:  in art, through art and with art.”