Cecil Balmond is a Sri Lankan/British designer, engineer, artist, architect, and writer. He has been hailed as "one of the most important forces in contemporary architecture today," [1] and in 2003 received the prestigious RIBA Charles Jencks award for Theory in Practice. He is also the recipient of the Gengo Matsui prize, one of the highest prizes for engineering given in Japan.[2] He teaches extensively and currently holds the Paul Philippe Cret chair at Penn Design as Professor of Architecture[3] where he is also the founding director of the NonLinear Systems Organization, a material and structural research unit.[4]
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Balmond's work is an open-ended visual application of theory. His principle that "structure as conceptual rigour is architecture" has become a compelling force, changing the face of architecture, art and engineering. Balmond’s dynamic and organizational approach to structure is informed by the sciences of complexity, non-linear organization and emergence. Recognizing that the universe is a constantly changing array of patterns, he draws on ancient wisdom and non-western mathematical archetypes as sources. Through his research, Balmond investigates mathematical concepts and their influence on natural forms and structures, interrogating algorithms, fractals, rhythm and cellular structure. “Peerless in his exploration…Balmond remains truer to the ancient philosophic meaning of techne than any of his contemporaries.”[5]
Cecil Balmond runs his own research focused practice, Balmond Studio (www.balmondstudio.com) The studio is headquartered in London and involved with consulting, architecture, exhibitions, installations, product design and art.
Cecil Balmond was born and educated in Sri Lanka. He received his primary and secondary education at Trinity College, Kandy and later studied engineering at the University of Colombo. After living briefly in Nigeria he moved to Britain and continued his studies in the University of Southampton and at Imperial College, London. He currently resides in London.
Balmond joined Ove Arup & Partners in 1968, rising to become deputy chairman. In 2000 he founded the AGU, an experimental research and design unit. Bringing together architects, mathematicians, programmers, artists, musicians and scientists, the lab investiages structural systems, delving to the root of order and patterns, engaging with music, algorithms, and malignant cellular structure to create abstract concepts that inspire tectonic forms.[6]
Since its inception the group has been collaborating with artists and architects. Under Balmond’s artistic direction, it has designed some of the world’s most famous structures including the Metz Centre Pompidou with Shigeru Ban and CCTV tower with Rem Koolhaas. Balmond has also been the creative force behind London’s high profile Serpentine Pavilion programme. The Ito-Balmond Serpentine Pavilion, 2002 was crafted in glass and white-painted aluminium and featured a scatter of lines, the product of an algorithm designed by Balmond. The pavilion is now located at the luxury hotel in South of France.[7] Balmond also designed pavilions with Daniel Libeskind (2001), Alvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura (2006) and Rem Koolhaas (2006).
One of Balmond’s most recent projects is ArcelorMittal Orbit a 120m high sculpture designed with Anish Kapoor for the 2012 Olympics in Stratford, London. Balmond also collaborated with Kapoor on Marysas a sculpture which was displayed in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern (2002), and also co-designed the giant Tees Valley art installations with Kapoor. Other key works by Balmond include a radical masterplan for Battersea Power Station (2006) and the Victoria & Albert Museum extension with Daniel Libeskind (1996).
Balmond’s own designs are numerous and include Weave Bridge, a bridge for University of Pennsylvania (2010), and the Pedro E Ines footbridge in Coimbra (2006).
Balmond is currently involved with various public art projects.
He has designed a complete interactive art proposal for a college in the US. This transforms the forgotten spaces of hallways, corridors and lobbies into thriving community and learning zones, celebrating the students daily experience. It will be finished this summer.
“It gives visual life to the building, students will have the opportunity to learn from Balmond’s work,” says Linda Ryan, art instructor and chair of the project committee at Casper College. [8]
Balmond has also created a monumental and poetic light sculpture for a public government building in Alaska. This will be completed in 2012.
His first artwork will be installed in Canada this September. Called net_Work, it comprises two sculptures inspired by “several circuits of code, one line of ambition that turns every corner, extending its reach in leaps or closing down its trace in small cells of intensity....”
Balmond’s work and installations have been presented in a number of shows including Frontiers of Architecture at the Museum of Modern Art in Denmark (2007). It was hailed as a “revolution – rich, complex, sometimes baffling, often beautiful" [1]
His most recent exhibition was Element, a show at the Tokyo Opera City in Japan where he presented various original artworks, including Danzer and H_edge.[9]
H_edge is a modular sieve-like sculpture, inspired by an “Indian rope trick”.[10] It was first unveiled at Artists Space in New York (2006), and has since been rebuilt in different guises for The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts in Chicago (2009) and the Carnegie Museum of Art (2010).
Danzer is a giant, three-dimensional puzzle. Close examination reveals that it is made up of only four kinds of tetrahedrons, each of which is in turn embedded with miniature versions of these four tetrahedrons. It has been shown, in different hand-crafted forms, at various exhibitions.
Translations: Portuguese, Japanese, Hebrew
His first book, Balmond travels into a semi-mystical world to unlock a secret realm of numbers.
Translations: Japanese, Korean and Chinese
The definintive account of Balmond’s investigative approach to structure and form. It earned him the Banister Fletcher prize for the best book of the year on architecture (2005). Deyan Sudjic of The Observer says,“ its glimpses of a hidden order of things, of the occult properties of numbers and shapes, suggest it could be the next Brief History of Time, but with pictures” [11]
The book invites the reader to enter the dialogues between Balmond and the architects he works with, sharing the intimacies of the design process. Projects range from a Villa in Bordeaux to a large Transport Interchange in Arnhem, from a canopy in Lisbon to the V&A spiral in London and an Exhibition Centre in Lille, highlighting his collaborations with Ben van Berkel, Daniel Libeskind, Rem Koolhaas, Alvaro Siza and Peter Kulka with Ulrich Konigs. The design, realised with Jannuzzi Smith, is inspired by mathematics books and children’s fiction.
Balmond looks through drawing and composition at a perception of space that has interconnected narratives. The narrative unfolds in three conceptual chapters - elements, pattern, nature - linked by two conceptual bridges, digital 'tectonics' and numbers.
Balmond has been visiting Kenzo Tange professor at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Saarinen Professor at Yale University School of Architecture and visiting fellow at London School of Economics Cities Programme. Balmond guest lectures extensively and this spring returned to Sri Lanka to give the Geoffrey Bawa Memorial Lecture. He currently holds the Paul Philippe Cret chair at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, PennDesign, as Professor of Architecture.