Peter Davey Quote
Few practices are more paradoxical than Patel Taylor. I first came across them as designers of an exquisite garden hut, and as masterplanners for large pieces of cities as different as Antwerp and Reims. What related the vastly different scales of activity were two qualities that continue to pervade all the work: humanity and materiality.
By humanity, I mean intense attention to the experiences of our bodies and minds in space, an understanding of what it is (or will be) like to sit there and look out through that window; what you will experience when you walk down that civic route; how you will meet your friends; how to avoid unwanted acquaintances. Few architects of their generation are more conscious of the importance of place and progression. The work is always concerned with generating spaces in which we (both as individuals and en masse) can be happy and comfortable, challenged and re-assured, stimulated and calmed.
There is a generous understanding of the contrariness of the human condition; few today attempt the brave but impossible task of resolving our contradictions three dimensionally with such insight and geniality.
Pankaj Patel and Andrew Taylor are the last architects you can accuse of being devoted to the art for its own sake. They are certainly artists, but ones who are well aware that, by building, we have to engage with our felÂlows, and try to ensure that their condition is enriched, both physically and psychologically.
Peter Davey