a-rakes-progress-9

The title of this exhibition is taken from William Hogarth’s series ‘A Rake’s Progress’ (1734-5),and presents design research produced as part of a PhD examining architecture and finance in the historic and contemporary setting of the city of Edinburgh. Hogarth’s series follows events in the life of a merchant’s son, Tom Rakewell, after the inheritance of his father’s wealth. Tom is ensnared by a variety of aristocratic vices (prostitution, drinking, gambling) and proceeds to lose his fortune. To save his standing Tom is forced to marry. He gambles away a second fortune, before being imprisoned and eventually committed to the asylum beyond the city limits where he would remain until his death.

Taking an analysis of the paintings of 'A Rake’s Progress' as a starting point, this exhibition examines the evolution of the architecture of finance through a series of drawings. It begins with the money chest, or kist, and extends to the modern office campus, connecting the communication of particular moral virtues with shifts in architectural expression. It connects the work of William Hogarth, the architecture of Sir John Soane and the drawings of his draughtsman J.M. Gandy, with the economic impact of the Company of Scotland expedition to Panama in 1698, and with the shifting physical presence of Edinburgh’s two banks.

The aim of this exhibition is to draw-out particular equivalencies or adjacencies between distinct architectural and political objects which, in their new arrangement, can be seen as the ‘context’ for an architectural research project. Consequently, the work aims to engage with a broad range of ‘contextual’ issues, encompassing the non-figurative (economic, moral, historical) as well as the figurative aspects of the city (climate, topography, materiality).