The Museum of Making, designed by White Arkitekter, was one of the showcase site-specific pavilions for this year’s Clerkenwell Design Week, which ran in London from 24-26 May 2016.

Located on St John’s Square and visible from Clerkenwell Road, The Museum of Making was at the centre of the installation trail. It provided a focal point for visitors to the festival whilst hosting an exhibition curated by Pete Collard, which reflected on Clerkenwell’s rich history of making.

The form of the pavilion – a Swedish barn - referenced White Arkitekter’s Scandinavian heritage. The pavilion was built from Equitone panels which are typically used as cladding, and were here arranged in section to create an open yet sheltered space to bring people together. Transparent roofing between the Equitone panels created a deconstructed barn form, bringing natural daylight into the space so that visitors could still feel part of the street.

Exploring the broad colour palette available in the Equitone range the pavilion was characterised by a spectrum of colours. From Clerkenwell Road, bright blue and green panels denoted the vibrancy of Clerkenwell’s contemporary design scene; at the opposite end warm muted colours picked up the palette of the surrounding brickwork and referenced Clerkenwell’s rich history of craft and industry.

Inside the pavilion vitrines showcased objects and artifacts loaned from the Museum of London collections, including tools and machinery rescued by the museum when many of the traditional family-run workshops and factories, some dating back to the 1800s, closed down in the 70s and 80s, leaving Clerkenwell a wasteland ripe for architects and designers to move in.

Individual items – such as tools and machinery, moulds and templates, materials and ephemera – with their own catalogued history are displayed alongside old maps and photographs to evoke a Clerkwenwell of the past and allow visitors to the museum to reflect on how Clerkenwell has evolved over the past 100 years.

Complementing the archival displays, the tools and design processes of contemporary makers working in and around Clerkenwell today, were also displayed.

The two displays visually mirrored each other, as book ends of a central active space where workshops and demonstrations took place, allowing visitors to actively engage in what they had seen and make something of their own or simply observe the art of making. The Museum of Making hosted workshops by institutions and companies local to Clerkenwell including The Goldsmiths’ Centre, Craft Central and Thomas.Matthews.

The pavilion was thoughtfully designed as a pop-up installation with re-use in mind. Due to its modular design it can be easily demounted and reconstructed in parts and White Arkitekter and Media 10 are currently speaking to to a number of organisations about repurposing it for community use.