Rose Miller

The Carlton Club has close links with the Conservative Party. The 1922 Committee was established there 100 years ago, and more recently Boris Johnson was forced to resign after knowingly appointing a chief whip who had sexually assaulted 2 people in the Club. It is a purpose-built gentlemen’s club based on an aristocratic dwelling. Intimate spaces for private conversations are designed in, as well as separate circulation spaces for staff.

My architectural interventions use the material language of Georgian architecture to reconfigure the spatial dynamics of the club. Wood panelling is folded out to form bookshelves and tea stations, curtains are moved to the exterior of the building to be operated from the street, and the crown-like dome is undermined with a huge disco ball. The drawings are depicted on indigo screen prints as permissible objects that could make their way into the club and provide instructions for architectural political dissonance.

Beneath the grand central staircase in the Carlton Club, there is a small nook named Cad’s Corner. A Cad refers to “a man who behaves dishonourably, especially towards women.” It is here that men are known to sit and look up the skirts of women climbing the staircase above them. My large-scale timber model exposes this previously hidden space and examines the spatial configuration of abuse.

I believe the naming of Cad’s Corner perpetuates the abusive activities that take place within it. Therefore, as a first step in unbuilding the Club, I tied posters to the exterior railings calling for Cad’s Corner to be renamed. Following this, I wrote to several MPs to rally support renaming the problematic nook. I received replies from Caroline Nokes MP and Harriet Harman KC MP who both agreed to contact the Club.

In my design, the space previously known as Cad’s Corner receives the greatest reuse by picking up on the characteristics of Working Men's Clubs. By folding out the wood panelling in Cad’s Corner, I have designed a stage for more overt political activity. The staircase above becomes a seating area, totally reversing the gaze of the occupier. The disco ball is designed to mimic the coffered surface of the dome it sits in. Instead of being a hidden nook for elicit activity, Cad’s Corner becomes a focal point in the club.

My discreet unbuilding interventions highlight the interiority and exclusivity of the political network. My flattened version of a Georgian Boot Scraper draws attention to the transition into the domestic sphere and the knuckle-duster tray transforms a gendered object of suppression into a weapon. The disruptive potential of the objects are screen printed onto napkins as roadmaps for political dissonance served alongside your dinner.

The final installation undresses the Carlton Club and provides a forensic investigation into the unbuilding of its problematic spatial dynamics. It simultaneously adheres to Georgian architectural features, whilst also working to undermine the building in both subtle and overt ways.