London collective Assemble has become the first architecture and design studio to receive the prestigious Turner Prize for art.
Assemble, a team of 18 young architects and designers, won the UK’s most important art award for its work on the Granby Four Streets project in Liverpool. The project is a collaboration with the residents of a rundown council housing estate to clean up the neighbourhood, paint empty houses and establish a local market.
The architects beat a trio of females artists – Bonnie Camplin, Janice Kerbel and Nicole Wermers – for the £25,000 prize, which is awarded annually by Tate gallery to a British artist or group under the age of 50.
As well as being the first “non-artists” to receive the Turner Prize, this is first time a “collective” has won in its 31-year history. The announcement was made with a ceremony at the Tramway arts venue in Glasgow, which is hosting an exhibition of the shortlisted projects until 17 January.
Assemble was founded in 2010, when the team built a temporary cinema in an abandoned petrol station in London’s Clerkenwell. The recent graduates cemented their reputation a year later with another temporary screening space, this time beside a canal under a motorway flyover.
They are currently working on a new gallery for London art college Goldsmiths in a converted bathhouse.
