Architect: Tony Fretton
Lisson to Tony Fretton
05.05.2025
Lisson to Tony Fretton05.05.2025
– Tony Fretton and Ricardo Aboim Inglez
Tony Fretton founded his architectural practice (Tony Fretton Architects) in 1982 in London. He came into international prominence in 1991 after the completion of the second Lisson Gallery building, transforming the street into an urban setting to be absorbed by culture. From his house in London and over two hours,… Read More
Lisson 1 + 2
07.02.2025
Lisson 1 + 207.02.2025
LISSON GALLERY 1, 1986. Bell Street, London NW1 Tony Fretton, Michael Fieldman, Ruth Aureole Stuart. We were invited to discuss a new building for the Lisson Gallery. Meetings took place in the office of their existing premises, that the Director and his colleagues shared. To reach it you walked in… Read More
Fuglsang Kunstmuseum: Facts and Interpretation in Staging a Museum
11.11.2024
Fuglsang Kunstmuseum: Facts and Interpretation in Staging a Museum11.11.2024
The following text was first published in OASE #111: Staging the Museum (2022). Drawing Matter would like to thank Tony Fretton and the issue’s editors Aslı Çiçek, Jantje Engels, and Maarten Liefooghe, for allowing us to reproduce the text. Purchase a copy of OASE #111 here. Fuglsang Kunstmuseum is located on the… Read More
Drawing Powers 4: The Drawing-object
02.11.2021
Drawing Powers 4: The Drawing-object02.11.2021
This text is the fourth in a series of five in which Fernando Poeiras (ESAD.CR/LIDA), explores the different powers of drawing within architectural design projects. Each text is illustrated with examples from the Drawing Matter Collection. Find the introduction to the series here. After I have developed a feel for the programme,… Read More
On Tony Fretton and the Lisson Gallery
05.02.2021
On Tony Fretton and the Lisson Gallery05.02.2021
A conversation with Nicholas Logsdail, standing in the farmyard at Shatwell, on the day he came with Freeny Yanni her sons Yanis and Cassius Hammick, to look at Tony Fretton’s sketchbooks for the Lisson Gallery. By way of response, Tony gives us his account of the genesis of the commission.… Read More
On a Handrail
30.11.2020
On a Handrail30.11.2020
What drew me to the drawings Tony made, and the handrail itself, is the line it treads between standardisation and customisation. The way in which, for instance, standard sections of steel are bundled together and expressed to form thicker newel posts or to hold the glazing panels of the balustrade.… Read More
Tony Fretton: Tolerance
27.10.2020
Tony Fretton: Tolerance27.10.2020
The following text is an excerpt from AMAG 20 | Tony Fretton Architects. Drawing Matter would like to thank the author and the editors of the magazine for allowing us to reproduce the text on drawingmatter.org. To order a copy of AMAG 20, click here. Tolerance is a measure of… Read More
Tony Fretton: Drawn Closer
06.02.2020
Tony Fretton: Drawn Closer06.02.2020
– Tony Fretton and Sarah Handelman
Sometimes you make drawings to tell yourself the project is going okay. Well, that’s what I do. This drawing came quite late in the design of the first Lisson Gallery. In the way I used to work, you would reach a point where you’d have a very thorough sense of… Read More
Alternative Histories: ECTV on Tony Fretton
29.07.2019
Alternative Histories: ECTV on Tony Fretton29.07.2019
We are very happy with this new commission. Thinking of a third phase for the London Lisson gallery is an honorable and challenging design assignment! Without false modesty, we must recognize that a Belgian architect is particularly well-placed for this task. After all, Belgians are very skilled in row-house configurations… Read More
Alternative Histories: Dyvik Kahlen Architects on Tony Fretton
29.07.2019
Alternative Histories: Dyvik Kahlen Architects on Tony Fretton29.07.2019
A Ruin The sketch is finished and unfinished at the same time, it’s precise and equally ambiguous. In a way architecture should be the same, somewhere between a ruin and a loved space. A ruin understood as a spatial sequence that follows it’s own internal logic, void of an immediate… Read More
Alternative Histories: Tony Fretton Architects on Erik Gunnar Asplund
19.12.2018
Alternative Histories: Tony Fretton Architects on Erik Gunnar Asplund19.12.2018
We recognise modernism as a continuing program to find architecture for the present time, and Asplund’s work as part of its history. Our project is a thought experiment on the central aspects of architecture’s modernism – social responsibility in combination with freedom to work with current sensibilities. It has proceeded… Read More
Tony Fretton: Lisson Gallery 1
27.02.2018
Tony Fretton: Lisson Gallery 127.02.2018
84-7-1 is a singular image, a drawing of Lisson 1 seen from Lisson Street. It shows the back gallery as it was first intended – but which is not what it became, because the client kept buying land and adding to it. This sketch explores how a piece of architecture… Read More
Working with Tony Fretton
04.01.2022
Working with Tony Fretton04.01.2022
– Jonathan Sergison
In the early 1990s a number of architects, academics and artists came together in a rather fluid manner, meeting regularly in my Bloomsbury apartment. Tony Fretton was older than most of us and had already established a clear critical position. The conversations we had, and sometimes the arguments, were instructive… Read More
competition culture DMC