Related Argent and Barnet Council, delivering Brent Cross Town, one of Europe’s largest net-zero urban regeneration projects, today unveils a new architectural frieze by celebrated Barnet-raised artist Giles Round. It is located at the soon-to-open Brent Cross West, London’s newest mainline station.
The large-scale work, covering 250 sq metres in three parts, will provide a striking welcome at the station’s impressive eastern entrance, ‘The Arbour’, and connects to Copper Square which is the centre of the new business and innovation district in Brent Cross Town.
The new station is set to open on Sunday 10 December 2023 with Thameslink trains connecting to central London in as little as 12 minutes. It provides the gateway to new neighbourhood Brent Cross Town via a new overbridge that will give access across this part of the Midland Main Line for the first time since it was built more than 150 years ago, linking communities on both sides of the station, and making it much easier to get around the area.
The new Giles Round piece, entitled Time passes & still I think of you, is dedicated to the artist’s late mother Margaret Round, who for a time worked in Brent Cross shopping centre. Combining personal memories with ideas about how place is essential to our sense of identity and how the buildings around connect us with the landscapes of our lives, the artwork is a tender monument to love, loss and hope.
It is composed of brightly coloured modular blocks that are repeated, recoloured and rotated. It runs along the full length of the south side and upper levels of The Arbour, Brent Cross West’s eastern entrance building and is 48-metres at its longest point. The colours and shapes in the frieze are inspired by the forms we build around us in cities, simplified decorative elements common to buildings across the globe. The work brings the outside in, reproducing a cityscape inside this new building.
The work is constructed using vitreous enamel panels, which are common to transport environments around the UK. The work was made in the Isle of Wight by A.J Wells & Sons Ltd, the largest vitreous enamel supplier in the UK and the principal supplier of enamel signage and cladding for London Underground.
This artwork comes as Barnet launches its bid for Borough of Culture 2027, after working with residents, students, artists, community groups, businesses and anyone with a current or past interest and connection with Barnet – to share their ideas and help celebrate the borough’s cultural identity.
Councillor Ammar Naqvi, Cabinet Member for Culture, Leisure, Arts and Sports at Barnet Council, said: “High profile artworks like the latest frieze by Giles Round at Brent Cross West help to showcase how we are building Barnet as a cultural destination. Our commitment to bid to become London’s Borough of Culture is about identifying and amplifying the amazing cultural offerings we already have here in Barnet, and about attracting artists, musicians and other cultural contributors to come here.”
Morwenna Hall, Partner at Related Argent, commented: “This is an exciting day to unveil a major piece of public art which is part of the new Brent Cross West station. We are delivering arts and culture from the very beginning of the development for the local community to enjoy. The new station is an important part of Brent Cross Town which enhances sustainable connectivity for local residents and anchors the new business and innovation district.”
Giles Round, who grew up in Barnet and now lives in St Leonards-on-Sea, works across disciplines, and frequently in the realm of public art, through a wide range of techniques and approaches. His previous work with London transportation included Art on the Underground at Blackhorse Road, Vauxhall and Victoria stations.
Giles Round, the artist, said: “The work is a monument to love. It is for everyone, in particular, all we have lost.”
Phoebe Greenwood, the curator, said: Giles Round is one of the UK’s most important artists with significant permanent public artworks across the country. Art, Round believes, has a critical place alongside architecture and design in creating organisations and environments to help us live well. The artist’s commitment to the civic and their unique relationship to the location has brought something profoundly personal into this new public space. This is a vibrant artwork. Bright colour, bold geometry, scale, beauty, pleasure – these are important elements the artist enjoys working with.”
An event to showcase the unveiling of the Giles Round piece will also see Barnet Council officially mark the submission of its bid to become London Borough of Culture 2027. Contributors to a short film made to accompany the bid will come together at Brent Cross West station for a photocall in front of the Giles Round frieze, and this will be followed by the first public showing of the short film at the Brent Cross Town Visitor Pavilion.
The launch of the new public artwork adds to the growing momentum behind Brent Cross Town with six buildings currently under construction featuring close to 1,000 new homes including affordable, market sale and rental homes as well as over 600 student homes. Sheffield Hallam University will also open its first campus outside of Sheffield at Brent Cross Town. The town already hosts a number of local retail and leisure offerings. On completion it will include 6,700 new homes, 3 million sq ft of offices, a new high street, leisure spaces and 50 acres of parks and playing fields.
Other art works at Brent Cross Town delivered by Related Argent and Barnet Council include a ‘wrap’ around the new electrical substation for the area by London-based artist Lakwena and architects IF_DO, a community mural by Annu Kilpeläinen, Rainbow of Ribbons by Hanna Benihoud and Yesterday, Tomorrow by Steven Wilson.
Brent Cross West is funded by central government and led by Barnet Council. It is one of the first rail projects in England to be delivered entirely by a local authority. It is located at Brent Cross, London, NW2 6LW.
London’s newest mainline station will open from Sunday 10 December 2023, with Thameslink trains connecting central London to Brent Cross in as little as 12 minutes. The new station is essential to unlocking wider development in the area and has been designed as a gateway to Brent Cross Town.