A round concrete building with a central octagonal domed part. Wood has been used throughout while moulding and setting the concrete, giving all the walls the texture, and appearance, of wood.
Around the outside of the building is a wide colonnade with stone benches running the length of it on the inside. The roof is a quarter arch, the floor a black and white chequered pattern. This colonnade runs around the outside of the building starting from either side of an open foyer that stands before the entrance to the kitchen and library block at the rear. It is held up by simple columns with semi-circle cut-outs between each one.
Between the colonnades, a triangular pediment rests above an open foyer, beyond which is the main entrance to the building. Etched into the otherwise plain frieze under the pediment are the words:
A Place to Reach an Understanding
This appears in both English and all local language(s).
A mosaic made up of shades of grey creating a horizontal gradient (from front to back) fills the floor of the foyer, with the colours getting lighter as they reach the entrance.
The entrance is made up of two grand wooden doors, one black and one white on the outside, each grey on the inside.
Inside the door, a corridor runs around the central part of the building with the same flooring as outside and just as wide. Benches run along both sides of the corridor. To the left hand side the corridor ends at a cafe that serves food and drink from the surrounding areas. There is also a door leading out to the gardens outside and outdoor seating for the cafe, the latter being both within the colonnade and in the open, depending on the weather.
The floor immediately on entry is a mosaic containing the word welcome in all local languages. The floor of the corridor leading to the gardens shows the flowers and foods of the local areas.
At the right hand end there is a library and archive and the main entrance into the main space (the kitchen, stores and library and archives are housed at the rear of the building with additional storage and administration offices underneath).
Straight ahead from the entrance, on the other side of the corridor, are oversized grey wooden doors. These are false doors, an art installation called The Past - there is only wall behind them but they are designed to look operational. The doors are mostly plain but have a series of square panels running across carved with pictures of an androgynous (in race and gender) figure being pursued by a spectre-like figure that gradually fades to a skeleton, then dust that blows away in the wind. The figures are heading from left to right, the first one disappearing off the edge of the final panel.
Either side of The Past, on the walls of the corridor are directions to the main space, library, gardens and cafe on the walls.
The corridor to the right has a floor with a simple mosaic in shades of grey broken up by the following words and phrases/text in darker grey on a lighter grey background in this order:
Check yourself. What is on your mind?
Allow the bucket to be emptied. Listen.
This must be a safe space for all.
“That’s all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they’re trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.”
Rebecca F. Kuang (2022) Babel, or the Necessity of Violence.
Then, finally, just before the entrances to the main space and the library:
“There isn’t a space for intimacy and immersion and nuance – really travelling into the grey…. And I think the grey is sacred. That’s where we can all meet each other.”
Dina Amer, quoted by Steve Rose (2023).
At the end of the corridor are two sets of grey wooden doors marking the entrance to the library and archives and the entrance into the central part of the building.
The central section is an eight sided room within which are many round tables with seats all around them. Above is a domed, glazed, roof.
Six works of art feature in this main room - a series called Sacred Gray. #1 is on the wall opposite the entrance. To the right the next section of wall is an exit that takes you to the coffee shop, and, beyond that, to the gardens.
To the left, the next three walls feature Sacred Gray #2, #4 and #3 in that order - while, to the right of the exit are #6 and #5 with the entrance taking up the last wall. All are large artworks.
The artworks are as follows:
Sacred Gray #1 (Neutrality): A black and white photograph in portrait format, of an empty beach looking out to a shipless sea with a clear sky. Each element (beach, sea, sky) takes up one third of the picture.
Sacred Gray #2 (Everything): A tapestry divided into four equal parts that each depict a concept in shades of grey of something that everyone needs to live well. These are: Home (somewhere to live) represented as a close-up of bricks and mortar, Food (something to eat) shown by a close-up of a slice of bread, Work (a job) pictured through a close-up of a coin and Leisure (spare time) seen as a detail from a clock face without hands.
Sacred Gray #3 (Everyone): A map of the world without any borders drawn with every country coloured in the same light grey with the sea a darker grey. From the centre of each country is a grey piece of string (in between the shades of the land and sea) connecting it to the centre of every single other country arranged so that most of the world is obscured, even the poles and the Pacific Ocean at either side of the map.
Sacred Gray #4 (The Future): Two large grey theatre curtains are drawn across the wall covering the same size area as The Past does on the other side. What is behind the curtains is not fully known.
Sacred Gray #5 (Find me where we meet): Oil on canvas: Two overlapping circles are pictured on a white background - one is white, the other black but the section where they overlap is a mid-grey.
Sacred Gray #6 (Onward travel): Oil on canvas: A dark grey background with a lighter grey icon on top - a version of the motorway symbol but the two lines come in from different points and join together as they cross the bridge (which appears vertically) and carry on together, side by side, on the other side of the bridge - although not in a straight line.
Outside, on the approach to the building is a paved courtyard but beyond the whole building, accessible by going through it, is a garden with paths leading to places to sit and talk or reflect, as well as flowers and trees from the surrounding areas, with the aim of having blooms and colour all year round as far as is possible.
As you enter the garden, a plaque reads:
“Gardens are a “common paradise”. They are there to be shared, to gather in, to converse in, to share ideas and to have a dialogue with those past and present. They are sites to feel inspired by, places of possibility, and, ultimately, to see the beauty of the world anew.”
Katy Hessel (2024) quoting Olivia Laing (2024).
At the far end of the gardens is a gift shop and exit
The building is to be set up wherever there is a need for different peoples to sit somewhere neutral, or liminal, and talk things over until they can find a way forward by combining their colours into a new one. Or by taking all that is black or white and making it grey.
Bibliography and Influences
Online resources
Forman, Lisa (2023) Dalí or not Dalí? The uncanny eye of Hiroshi Sugimoto – in pictures. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2023/oct/24/dali-or-not-dali-the-uncanny-eye-of-hiroshi-sugimoto-in-pictures?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other (Accessed: 24th October 2023).
Hessel, Katy (2024) The great women's art bulletin: Thrill me, hide me, restore me: what can we learn about artists from their gardens? Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/article/2024/may/13/artists-gardens-niki-de-st-phalle-barbara-hepworth-st-ives (Accessed: 14th May 2024).
Oltermann, Philip (2024) The heavy hand of God: Europe’s brutalist churches – in pictures. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2024/mar/07/the-heavy-hand-of-god-europes-brutalist-churches-in-pictures (Accessed: 7th March 2024).
Rose, Steve (2023) ‘I buckled when I saw her remains’ – the biopic about ‘Europe’s first female suicide bomber’. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jan/25/europes-first-female-suicide-bomber-hasna-ait-boulahcen-paris-attacks-dina-amer (Accessed: 26th January 2023).
Sinek, Simon (2021) The Art of Listening Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpnNsSyDw-g (Accessed: 19th November 2025).
Books
Kuang, Rebecca F. (2022) Babel, or the Necessity of Violence. HarperVoyager, London.
Laing, Olivia (2024) The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise. Picador, London.
Artworks
af Klint, Hilma (1915) The Swan, No. 17. [Oil on canvas]. Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden. See: https://www.wikiart.org/en/hilma-af-klint/the-swan-no-17-1915-0
Af Klint, Hilma and Unknown (2023) Model of The Temple, based on Hilma af Klint’s notebook drawings [Maquette]. See: https://www.tate.org.uk/documents/1844/TMEXH_0086_AfKlint_Mondrian_LargePrintGuide_web_aw_.pdf p.177 (Accessed: 3rd March 2026).
Atkinson, James (2023) #178: Work Together (A Socialist Tapestry). Available at: https://thehaberdasheryofimaginedart.blogspot.com/2023/06/178-we-should-work-together-socialist.html (Accessed: 5th March 2026).
Mark Rothko’s Colour field paintings.
Sobel, Janet (1945) The Milky Way [Enamel on canvas]. Museum of Modern Art, New York. See: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/80636
Sugimoto, Hiroshi (1997) Bay of Sagami, Atami, 1997 [Gelatin silver print, mounted on card]. Series, various collections. See: https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/photographs/hiroshi-sugimoto-b-1948-168/253994
Architecture and Places
Gibberd, Frederick (1958-68) Fulwell Cross Library. Fulwell Cross, UK, TQ 44535 90315. See: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1391938?section=official-list-entry
Gibberd, Frederick (1958-68) Fulwell Cross Leisure Centre. Fulwell Cross, UK. See: https://visionrcl.org.uk/leisure/fulwell-cross-leisure-centre/
Lasdun, Denys and Softley, Peter (1976-77) National Theatre. South Bank, London, UK, 51°30′26″N 0°06′51″W. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_National_Theatre
Pope, John Russell and Smith, Sidney RJ (1897) Tate Britain. Millbank, London, UK, 51°29′27″N 0°07′38″W. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tate_Britain
Rothko, Mark; Johnson, Philip, et al. [Renovation (2020) by Architecture Research Office] (1971) Rothko Chapel. Houston, Texas, USA, 29°44′15″N 95°23′46″W. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothko_Chapel
Sheppard Robson & Partners (1970) University Building, City St George’s, University of London. Clerkenwell, London, UK, 51.5278°N 0.1023°W. See: https://manchesterhistory.net/architecture/1960/cityuniversity.html
Tsambika Beach, Rhodes, Greece.
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