VILLA CARL

© The Artist Courtesy Maureen Paley, Interim Art, London

VILLA CARL 1997

Paul Noble (1963 – )

Details

Dimension
50 X 70 CM
Media
PENCIL ON PAPER
Accession number
P7099

Summary

Paul Noble created a fictional urban landscape in his series of pencil drawings Nobson Newtown. In his metropolis buildings are composed of three-dimensional letters of the alphabet executed in a customised font. Each precisely rendered drawing reveals a new perspective of the townscape, featuring architectural creations constructed from an arrangement of letters, their components spelling out their designated function – villa, slum, light industrial plant, quarry and ‘Paul’s Palace’, the architect’s house. The drawings build up to disclose an elaborately constructed fiction concerning the social infrastructure of this mythical new town, at once playful and sinister. Using the representational devices of architectural elevation drawings, topographic views and fairytale illustration Nobtown represents a nightmarish parody of post-war Utopian town planning.

Landscape, The British Council 2000