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Neil Spiller
Neil Alexander Spiller (born 22 October 1961) is an English visionary architect, artist, educator and editor of Architectural Design (AD). He is widely regarded as a paradigm-shifting theorist in the architectural discourse.
Spiller is known for being the founding director of the Advanced Virtual and Technological Architectural Research (AVATAR) Group, an academic research unit and think tank established at The Bartlett, University College London (UCL), which pioneered the implementation of digital theory in architecture. Outside of academia, he is best known artistically for his long project and paracosm, Communicating Vessels (1998–).
Stylistically, Spiller produces what he terms 'interstitial drawings', created with reference to the conventions of architectural drawing but representing structures unable to be built outside of virtual space, sometimes blending between isometric, axonometric, perspective and elevation. He is a champion of the notion that architecture must not be bound to the tangible. As he writes: '[m]y preoccupation is to compositionally straddle the virtual and the actual, art and matter'.
Spiller was born in Tankerton, England, and raised in the village of Sturry. His parents were Arthur George Spiller, an electrician and petty officer in the Royal Navy, and Betty Ella Spiller (née Everett). His maternal grandfather was Walter Oliver Everett, a building contractor who constructed the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury. His paternal grandfather, Sidney Spiller, was apprenticed at Windsor Castle as a gardener during the latter reign of Queen Victoria. Spiller attended the Geoffrey Chaucer School in Canterbury from age 11 to 18.
Spiller began training as an architect in London, in the early 1980s. He submitted a sketch of a great crested grebe as part of his application to Thames Polytechnic (now the University of Greenwich), being accepted. Spiller described the Polytechnic's sensibilities during his time as a student as adhering to the 'tasteful Modernism of the Cambridge School'. He describes architects of this movement, such as Sir Leslie Martin, as 'Jesuit Modernists', bound by design principles such as form follows function and the prohibition of ornament which Spiller regards as emblematic of 'architectural guilt'. Instead, he became enamoured of more disruptive, post-structuralist approaches which were gaining traction at this time through the work of architects such as Lebbeus Woods, Daniel Libeskind and Michael Webb. Spiller took great inspiration from these architects' aesthetic philosophies, attending their exhibitions at the Architectural Association (AA). He also took an interest in the neo-Gothic architects William Burges, Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel and Augustus Pugin.
At this time, Spiller formed a connexion with Cedric Price, on whom he wrote his third-year dissertation, 'Right Price, Wrong Time'.
After graduating, Spiller moved to Blackheath and formed the practice Spiller Farmer Architects with fellow Thames Polytechnic alumnus Laurie Farmer in 1987. The two would collaborate on architectural drawings, dividing card-stock between themselves to produce what Spiller terms 'schizophrenic drawings'. These early works largely focused on objects isolated from their spaces rather than drawing spaces themselves, contextualised by objects. An early example of this is their Vitriolic Column (1986), with Spiller citing Charles Jencks as an early influence. Spiller Farmer also produced plans for Milwaukee and Genoa made anew, with reference to Le Corbusier's ambition to redesign Paris. Much of this early work was published in Building Design at the time.
The Spiller Farmer practice was based in London and opened offices in Bratislava in 1990. The same year they published their early drawings in a collection titled Burning Whiteness, Plumb Black Lines, with Cedric Price introducing the volume. Spiller incorporated much of Price's philosophy of architecture around this time, chiefly his ideas regarding architecture as an enabling and liberating technology. Due to the economic recession, Spiller Farmer Architects was dissolved in 1995. Farmer however remained in Slovakia and continued to work under the practice's name. His company eventually diversified into real estate consultancy, being re-founded in Zagreb in 2003.
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Neil Spiller
Neil Alexander Spiller (born 22 October 1961) is an English visionary architect, artist, educator and editor of Architectural Design (AD). He is widely regarded as a paradigm-shifting theorist in the architectural discourse.
Spiller is known for being the founding director of the Advanced Virtual and Technological Architectural Research (AVATAR) Group, an academic research unit and think tank established at The Bartlett, University College London (UCL), which pioneered the implementation of digital theory in architecture. Outside of academia, he is best known artistically for his long project and paracosm, Communicating Vessels (1998–).
Stylistically, Spiller produces what he terms 'interstitial drawings', created with reference to the conventions of architectural drawing but representing structures unable to be built outside of virtual space, sometimes blending between isometric, axonometric, perspective and elevation. He is a champion of the notion that architecture must not be bound to the tangible. As he writes: '[m]y preoccupation is to compositionally straddle the virtual and the actual, art and matter'.
Spiller was born in Tankerton, England, and raised in the village of Sturry. His parents were Arthur George Spiller, an electrician and petty officer in the Royal Navy, and Betty Ella Spiller (née Everett). His maternal grandfather was Walter Oliver Everett, a building contractor who constructed the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury. His paternal grandfather, Sidney Spiller, was apprenticed at Windsor Castle as a gardener during the latter reign of Queen Victoria. Spiller attended the Geoffrey Chaucer School in Canterbury from age 11 to 18.
Spiller began training as an architect in London, in the early 1980s. He submitted a sketch of a great crested grebe as part of his application to Thames Polytechnic (now the University of Greenwich), being accepted. Spiller described the Polytechnic's sensibilities during his time as a student as adhering to the 'tasteful Modernism of the Cambridge School'. He describes architects of this movement, such as Sir Leslie Martin, as 'Jesuit Modernists', bound by design principles such as form follows function and the prohibition of ornament which Spiller regards as emblematic of 'architectural guilt'. Instead, he became enamoured of more disruptive, post-structuralist approaches which were gaining traction at this time through the work of architects such as Lebbeus Woods, Daniel Libeskind and Michael Webb. Spiller took great inspiration from these architects' aesthetic philosophies, attending their exhibitions at the Architectural Association (AA). He also took an interest in the neo-Gothic architects William Burges, Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel and Augustus Pugin.
At this time, Spiller formed a connexion with Cedric Price, on whom he wrote his third-year dissertation, 'Right Price, Wrong Time'.
After graduating, Spiller moved to Blackheath and formed the practice Spiller Farmer Architects with fellow Thames Polytechnic alumnus Laurie Farmer in 1987. The two would collaborate on architectural drawings, dividing card-stock between themselves to produce what Spiller terms 'schizophrenic drawings'. These early works largely focused on objects isolated from their spaces rather than drawing spaces themselves, contextualised by objects. An early example of this is their Vitriolic Column (1986), with Spiller citing Charles Jencks as an early influence. Spiller Farmer also produced plans for Milwaukee and Genoa made anew, with reference to Le Corbusier's ambition to redesign Paris. Much of this early work was published in Building Design at the time.
The Spiller Farmer practice was based in London and opened offices in Bratislava in 1990. The same year they published their early drawings in a collection titled Burning Whiteness, Plumb Black Lines, with Cedric Price introducing the volume. Spiller incorporated much of Price's philosophy of architecture around this time, chiefly his ideas regarding architecture as an enabling and liberating technology. Due to the economic recession, Spiller Farmer Architects was dissolved in 1995. Farmer however remained in Slovakia and continued to work under the practice's name. His company eventually diversified into real estate consultancy, being re-founded in Zagreb in 2003.