There are no defined boundaries between the restaurant and the artistic programme, which is applauded internationally for its quirky, curatorial position.
The Wapping Project is housed in the Wapping Hydraulic Power Station, a matchless cultural space on the north bank of the Thames, east of Tower Bridge.
Celebrated for its singular combination of challenging contemporary art and performance, fine food and inspiring architecture, it opened to the public in October 2000. The Wapping Hydraulic Power Station was built by the London Hydraulic Power Company in 1890. It harnessed Thames water to provide power to the surrounding docks and throughout the central London area. When it finally closed in 1977 it was the last of its kind in the world.
The conversion of the Wapping Hydraulic Power Station for The Wapping Project was designed and conceived by architectural and design practice SHED 54. Rules were broken to give the contemporary elements a feeling of architectural impermanence for example stairs made from mild steel and untreated to develop a patina of rust The juxtaposition of the light and transparent qualities of the new with the gravity of the original building intensifies the effect of each. The new architecture identifies with the beauty of the historic building and aims, above all, to create a backdrop against which artists can create audacious contemporary work.
The Wapping Project is the creation of the distinguished theatre director, Jules Wright; its sense of drama is palpable.
There is something essentially indefinable about The Wapping Project; it remains an idea in a state of transformation, consistently re-made and re-invented.
It is an idea rooted in a magical building and realised within it. While solid and substantial, it is also mercurial and inexplicable.
The Wapping Project effortlessly incorporates the award-winning restaurant Wapping Food, which spills through the Engine and Turbine Houses. Fuelled by the same sense of perfection and ambition, Wright views the commissioning of the Chefs in much the same way as she does the artists with whom she works. A daily changing menu, in-house butchery, carefully sourced produce have consistently marked out Wapping Food and defined its place within London’s most serious restaurants.
The body of work produced by The Wapping Project is the product of twenty year’s experience and an un-challenged record of commissioning artists who have become major players in the UK’s cultural landscape.
All work in the Wapping Hydraulic Power Station is new, commissioned and site-specific.
Benchmarks include:
ALL ABOUT CHAIRS, a series of 33 photography and choreography commissions (July to October 2003); Richard Wilson’s extraordinary site-specific work, BUTTERFLY (Spring 2003); NYC, the ground breaking photography show of Magnum photographers and their work on New York (Summer 2002); Elina Brotherus’ SPRING photography and video installation (Winter 2001); Solo jazz performances commissioned for JERWOOD: SOLO WITH LIGHT (Winter 2001, later heard on JAZZ ON THREE); Keith Haring’s THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (Summer 2001); an extensive choreography series on the external stairwell, STAIRWORKS: JERWOOD:10X8 (Summer 2001); CONDUCTOR by Jane Prophet (Winter 2000), featuring 120 luminescent cables in the flooded Boiler House and Anya Gallaccio’s sublime 34 tonne ice-block, INTENSITIES AND SURFACES commissioned for the derelict building in 1996.
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