Mark Lutyens commissions Martha Freud and others in a restoration project
Mark Lutyens associates has commissioned various designers, craftsmen and artists from within Great Western Studios for a restoration of a historical landscape.
Mark Lutyens and Catherine FitzGerald have been working on this significant project in Wiltshire for several years now. They are creating new gardens around an early 18th century grade 1 house which was a near ruin and is now being extensively restored.
Whilst already collaborating with sculptor Olivia Musgrave who has been commissioned to make a large sculptural piece for the centre of a formal pool, they are now working with Martha Freud, Sid Dawe and Danny Wootton who are designing and installing a fantastical black pergola made from the gnarled timbers cut from the stag-head tops of the park’s many ancient oak trees.
“Making gardens is all about putting a team together and then working together in a co-ordinated way” says Mark, “With most other projects, meetings are generally on site, invariably in the wind and rain, with this job we can pop in each other’s studios or have a coffee in Steve’s cafe. Although these particular clients have only visited us once here at Great Western Studios – and that was before the building was finished – they really liked it, not just the kaleidoscope of colour and ideas that hits you when you walk in but they could appreciate the benefits of having us all under one roof. I hope we do more of this in future”
Mark is very keen on nurturing this type of collaborations that can present a great benefit to both artists in the building and clients.