alex chinneck’s monumental brick facade sculpture slides and sits down in a london garden

A week at the knees by Alex Chinneck shows up in london

At the Clerkenwell Design Week 2025, Alex Chinneck’s monumental brick facade sculpture slides and sits down in London’s Charterhouse Square. Named ‘A week at the knees,’ the public art, on view at the event between May 20th and 22nd, looks like it has gotten weary, so it slides down onto the grass to take a break. It raises its knees, creating an arch over the gravel path and allowing the visitors to pass through it like a temporary underpass. At first glance, the monumental brick facade sculpture seems made of lightweight materials. That is, until Alex Chinneck tells visitors the sculpture comes to life using real bricks, 7,000 in total.

Under the red bricks lies 4.6 tons of reused steel, salvaged from the demolition of the former American Embassy in London and provided by Cleveland Steel. The step has allowed the artist to reduce the artwork’s footprint by around 9.3 tons of carbon emissions. The 7,000 bricks are a combination of First Quality Multi Bricks and Floren Albion bricks, provided by the Michelmersh Group and precision cut by FabSpeed. There are seven recycled steel windows with four bending frames, courtesy of Crittal Windows, alongside one bending door and drainpipe. Visitors can see the artwork for free from today until the end of June 2025 at Charterhouse Square, London.

all images courtesy of Alex Chinneck | photos by Charles Emerson

monumental brick facade sculpture that has slid down

‘A week at the knees’ is a freestanding monumental brick facade sculpture. At the present time, it stands at 5.5 meters tall and is 13.5 meters long. It’s not the first time Alex Chinneck made his public art slide down. He did it in 2013 with the sliding house in Margate, which first brought him global attention. In this artwork, the facade seems to peel off from the house. In ‘A week at the knees’, a slope emerges, the knees of the sculpture, depicting a local or tourist who’s resting in the garden during summertime. It’s more physical, more human, more alive.

While it’s almost impossible not to see the monumental brick facade sculpture, there’s still a chance some might think a building’s walls have peeled off if they’re looking at it. That’s because the public art, when viewed from afar, mimics the Georgian architecture that surrounds it, making the temporary sculpture seemingly part of the rows of houses. The artist has been doing his practice for a long time. He has completed close to twenty public artworks already. He has made buildings that melt, hover, bend, and unzip, and even tied street furniture in knots. Safe to say that he’s just getting started. Even more follows after the brick facade sculpture at Clerkenwell Design Week.

Alex Chinneck’s monumental brick facade sculpture slides and sits down in London’s Charterhouse Square

named ‘A week at the knees,’ the public art is on view between May 20th and 22nd, 2025

it has raised ‘knees’ to allow visitors to pass through it

the sculpture comes to life using real bricks, 7,000 in total

in detail, there are 4.6 tons of reused steel under the red bricks

visitors can evidently walk through it like an underpass

overall, there are seven steel windows with four bending frames

as seen, Alex Chinneck sitting next to his monumental brick facade sculpture named ‘A week at the knees’

the steel used for the most part is from the demolished parts of the former American Embassy in London

so far, the sculpture is on view until may 22nd, 2025

project info:

name: A week at the knees