MULTISTORY
As BBC White City was demolished and redeveloped 8 commissions from White Noise took place in its East Tower –due for imminent removal.
The project ‘Multistory’ took inspiration from the tower’s history as home to BBC children’s television and staged one last epic story for the towers demise. Taking the format of Jackanory as a starting point, a lone celebrity reading a famous story was replaced by locally recruited people from 6 to 80 invited in to sit in an armchair and read from Ted Hughes’ ‘Iron Man’ – a staple text of Jackanory and a tale of destruction and renewal. As people read, a team of children weilding crowbars and sledgehammers from White City Adventure Playground took pleasure in destroying the building around them.
Ted Hughes’ voice joins the readers as the building is consigned to deletion and the site prepares for new development.
Read more here and here at White Noise and in an early Q&A with RIBA Journal here
Behind the scenes making ‘Multistory’ in East Tower, BBC White City 2016.
Portraits of the readers.
Drawings by Barn Croft Primary School year 3 students inspired by the project.
