YARON LAPID
TEXT: Dr. CHRIS WRIGHT
part 2: Percy Villa
part 3: Ommaney Rd
Yaron Lapid's work documents the ways in which social space is effectively re-mapped through certain idiosyncratic changes to the architecture of individual houses in suburban London. It involves a kind of imaginative topography, a re-working of the social fabric that is revealed through the bright facades of terraced houses that stand out from their surroundings, whether uniformly gentrified, drab etc. These coloured facades demonstrate a kind of mapping that combines the architectural and the social, that overlays them so that any architectural re-modeling is seen as an attempt at social re-fashioning. In this sense the reaction to such irruptions of creativity are seen as an affront both to the eyes and to notions of the acceptable social order – why do these people want to ’stand out’ like that?
In a positive sense these kinds of houses are often locally renowned for their eccentricity – like houses covered in Christmas lights and decorations like electric singing snowmen and festive Santa's climbing up neon ladders – but under present circumstances this mythic quality is all too often lost in the negative effect such creativity can have on real estate prices. That house in the terrace may provoke knowing smiles and whispered comments, but it also has a dramatic effect on the prices of adjacent properties.
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