Ilya & Emilia Kabakov: The Palace of Projects

24 March - 10 May 1998
The Roundhouse, Chalk Farm, London NW1

Inside The Roundhouse: The Palace of Projects

One of the great buildings in London, The Roundhouse in Camden Town is a magnificent memorial to the Victorian mind: to progress science and belief in the future. At the end of a century of great dreams and broken promises, the celebrated Soviet artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov created in the Roundhouse one of their own visionary schemes - The Palace of Projects.

Inside 'The Palace' were displayed a vast range of models and maquettes, plans and paintings made by melancholics and misfits, absurd hobbyists and down-to-earth dreamers - 'The Palace of the Future', 'The White Cloud Ball', 'How to Meet an Angel', 'The Enfilada of World Music'... a spiralling succession of tragi-comic proposals to make the world a better place.

The Palace of Projects was a universal exhibition of everyday obsessions. Like the heroic artists and architects of the early 20th century, the Kabakovs are great constructors. But they built the reality of an imperfect today rather than a perfect tomorrow. With a light touch and dark humour, the Kabakovs showed how people dream and scheme their way through the survival course of everyday life.

Following its appearance at The Roundhouse (where its launch included a speech by Peter Mandelson), The Palace of Projects appeared at Market Place, Manchester (1998), Cristal Palace, Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid (1999) and NY Armory Building, New York (2000). It can currently be found in permanent residence at a former salt store in the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in Essen, Germany.

This project was supported by Arts Council England, Special Angels and The Company of Angels