Press - Jamie Fobert Architects

Scaffold is a podcast series featuring interviews with architects, artists and designers. Hosted by Matthew Blunderfield and produced by the Architecture Foundation, it is available on Apple Pocasts, Spotify, and most major podcast streaming platforms.

In Episode 98, Matthew interviews Jamie, who reflects on the arc of his career to date with a focus on the art that most inspires his architectural practice, including works by Giorgio Morandi and Vilhelm Hammershøi, as well as the links between work and selfhood, aesthetics and identity.

“The artist working alone in their studio is the antithesis of what we do every day as architects […] and yet one hopes that the work you produce might have the same resonance.” – Jamie Fobert

Find out more and listen here.

Heading up the FT’s compilation of “The best museum gift shops in the world” is our very own shop for Kettle’s Yard, which was completed alongside the new galleries and learning centre in 2018.

The FT writes, “This small, light-filled extension echoes the simple beauty of the original 19th-century
cottages-turned-museum created by collector Jim Ede.”

The retail team at Kettle’s Yard has filled the shop with imaginative and beautiful products and reproductions of objects from the house, allowing every visitor to bring a piece of this magical place home with them, if they wish. Our design for the shop began by adapting the ‘homemade’ joinery of Jim Ede’s cupboards and shelves into a simple set of units, all made in tulip wood and hand-painted on site. Even Jim’s beloved corner China cabinet is recreated, though simplified.

We are currently looking to recruit an architectural assistant with outstanding 3D image-making skills to join our London studio to work on a range of cultural, residential and retail projects.

We are keen to meet candidates with: high proficiency working in Rhino and 3D rendering software, V-Ray or similar; an intuitive understanding of 3D space; a keen interest in materiality; self-motivation, enthusiasm and an ability to work well as part of a team; excellent CAD skills, which ideally will include knowledge of MicroStation.

To apply for this opportunity, please send by Monday 28 August 2023: a cover letter introducing yourself, outlining your motivation and highlighting relevant experience; a CV, detailing your education, work experience, software skills and languages; a concise illustrated portfolio.

All enquiries and applications to: recruitment@jamiefobertarchitects.com

The Telegraph’s chief art critic Alastair Sooke has had exclusive access to the National Portrait Gallery throughout its three-year-long transformation.

In this film, Alastair visits the site while construction is in progress and speaks with Jamie and the Gallery’s Director, Nicholas Cullinan, about how the project makes the most of every part of this handsome historic building, making it beautiful and welcoming and very much part of the city.

The AR Museums Issue arrives just in time to share a wonderful peek at the National Portrait Gallery as it prepares to reopen on 22 June after the biggest redevelopment in its 127-year history.

With the final touches to the building still being made, writer Ellie Duffy took a walk around with Jamie: “Part placemaking, part architecture, in the architects’ hands ‘obvious’ becomes effortless … ensuring that what could have been mere gesture in fact reverberates deeply throughout every corner of the gallery.”

Read the piece in full here.

Jamie talks about working with specialist fabricators: creating a raw black steel stair for Pace Gallery with Cake Industries, developing a family of light fixtures with Opus Magnum, and working with teams of stone specialists to build a travertine stair and a new stone floor for the Burlington Arcade.

Read the whole piece in the RIBA Journal, here.

One of our very earliest residential projects, in 1998, was to reconstruct the rear elements of a Victorian villa on Love Walk in Camberwell, for artists Christopher Le Brun and Charlotte Verity.

Now on the market with Inigo, Christopher and Charlotte open the doors to their home and describe life in their house on Love Walk.

Our addition to their Victorian villa was designed to redirect the focus of the house to enjoy its attractive side garden, and to create an interior space with gallery-like simplicity and calmness – including a top-lit wall for hanging a large painting.

Read Inigo’s full article or take a look at the listing here.

Dezeen have today published a piece about our House in Primrose Hill featuring a movie by Tapio Snellman and photographs by Jim Stephenson.

Amy Frearson writes: “The project took a feat of engineering. Two original floors of the house were temporarily suspended, allowing a previous floor to be rebuilt and an extra floor to be slotted in underneath. ‘The house presents itself to the city in a very unassuming way,’ said Fobert. ‘It feels as if nothing has changed since it was first built. But when you walk through the door, you are met with an extraordinary transformation, with a space which seems like it shouldn’t fit inside.'”

Wallpaper* has published a feature, written by Ellie Stathaki, about our House in Primrose Hill.

Accompanied by photographs by Jim Stephenson, Ellie writes that the house ‘balances a discreet, street-facing frontage with a distinctly contemporary interior of minimalist architecture and subtle spatial luxury inside’.

To read the full article visit Wallpaper* or read more on our House in Primrose Hill here on our website.

Jamie invited The Modern House into his Clerkenwell home, to tell them the story of its design, and talk about what it means to live in a modern way:

“Designing someone’s house, you have to be very careful not to make it sensational, because a home is where people have to wake up every morning, somewhere where they have to come home to, where they have to be on a rainy day, where they have to be when they’re feeling ill and where they celebrate and entertain.”

Read more and see the beautiful photographs here.

Jamie was invited by Building Design to share a favourite building as part of their new 50 Wonders series, which marks the magazine’s 50^th birthday.

Jamie selected the Sao Paulo Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism by architect Vilanova Artigas, a building he came across on his travels a few years ago:

“From wherever you approach, you move seamlessly under an immense canopy into the school without ever encountering a door. This is an exceptionally public building, with a sense of commonality throughout; its broad ramps, long benches and social spaces have a generosity of scale combined with modesty of detail.”

Read the full BD article here.

Jamie contributes to Pamela Buxton’s article on how the Covid-19 pandemic has influenced and may affect museums and galleries, as they begin to open their doors once more to visitors. Topics from safety to funding and sustainability are discussed, along with some possible changes we can expect to see put in place moving forward.

Jamie comments that “The one positive thing that might happen is that when they [galleries and museums] do come back, people will appreciate the experience they offer all the more.”

Read the full article in The RIBA Journal.

Jamie recalls fond memories of visiting Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute in San Diego for the first time, when discussing buildings that we will look forward to seeing again after the coronavirus pandemic.

‘With its extraordinary setting and views, as well as its immense physical form, is the most powerful reminder of the importance of the direct encounter’.

Read Amanda Baillieu’s full article on Dezeen here.

The Globe and Mail, Canada’s foremost newspaper, has published a feature about Jamie.

Writer Katherine Ashenburg met with Jamie in our Shoreditch studio to learn about our projects, focusing on significant gallery projects for Kettle’s Yard, Tate St Ives and the National Portrait Gallery. She tells the story of Jamie’s journey from being a young student in Canada to an established architect in London:

“The lessons we learned in first year,” Fobert says, “are still some of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned: that
architecture should be unpretentious and it should be humane and it should be about the users and about improving their existence and their lives in ways that were beautiful.”

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Jamie sat down with Nick Carvell, Editor of The Jackal, as part of the magazine’s Citymakers portfolio to discuss architecture in the city, including the proposed new public space at the National Portrait Gallery:

“Public space is an integral part of what makes a city great – or not. Many of these places already exist, but what is important is how they are handled, how inviting they are, how open they are to having events, or to having people sit.”

This article is out now in the latest edition of The Jackal Magazine or you can listen to their conversation on the podcast by clicking here.

We are delighted that Jamie Fobert Architects is shortlisted alongside five other practices in the Public Building category of the BD Architect of the Year Awards 2019.

Our submission included three completed public gallery projects – Tate St Ives, Kettle’s Yard and Charleston – and our reconfiguration of the National Portrait Gallery, which is currently in the design process.

Read more about all the shortlisted practices and their work here.

In the February issue of ICON magazine, in partnership with Arper, Jamie is interviewed by Priya Khanchandani about weaving ‘finely crafted buildings into the awkward, hidden folds of our urban fabric’.

Portrait by Carl Russ-Mohl.

Ahead of this weeks announcement for Art Fund’s Museum of the Year, The Art Newspaper explores Tate’s connection to the community in St Ives.

Ben Luke describes how “..the extension to the Tate’s westernmost outpost has been welcomed and is now enabling the gallery to reach its full potential”.

Photography by Marc Atkins for the Art Fund.

Jamie sat down with Robert Bevan of the Evening Standard to discuss being appointed to transform the National Portrait Gallery, how he started his career in architecture, his affinity for art and the links between Tate St Ives, Kettle’s Yard and Charleston.

Robert described Jamie as the “go-to man for cool, clever museum extensions — and the National Portrait Gallery is next”.

Read the full article in the Evening Standard.

Gillian Darley eloquently writes for Frieze Magazine of our careful changes, thoughtful details and observant touches at the new Kettle’s Yard, which opened to the public on Saturday 10 February.

“the transformation has been achieved, seemingly, by sleight of hand. Jamie Fobert Architects inserted a set of entirely new buildings which, until you set off for a room in the four-storey education centre or press on past the entrance area towards the pair of full height white-walled exhibition galleries, you scarcely suspect are there at all. The effect is the result of adherence to a palette of materials and forms that spill over and bond the old extension and the new front of house”.

Read Gillian’s full review in Frieze.