GEORGE L.LEGENDRE BArch MA Harvard ARB, Professor in practice Harvard GSD Boston USA, founder of IJP Architects

John Pickering started his first collaboration with the architect George Legendre in 2002 which continued to the very end of John's life and beyond.  It was a collaborative process motivated and enriched by the strong empathy created between like minds.

After seeing John Pickering’s work exhibited at the Architectural Association in Bedford Square, London in 2002, George approached him with the idea of collaborating on a project exploring the feasibility of producing a large scale computer generated piece. George Legendre’s architectural practice, IJP Corporation, specialised in the natural intersections of space, mathematics and computation and was therefore ideally suited to Pickering’s work.

Having worked together to identify the ideal sculpture, the artist’s original extensive calculations were used to draw a flat material pattern. The patterns were flat sheet laser cut and the sculpture finally pieced together. The first piece, Model 1, was produced in 2005 and subsequently two other sculptures have been made using the same method.

In 2016 John Pickering was approached by the architectural practice, Doone Silver Kerr, to create a significant piece of public art at the landmark office building at 103 Colmore Row, Birmingham.  Sadly John passed away during the prototyping of the work before he could see his dream of his work made on a large-scale become a reality.  However thanks to the close collaboration from the outset on the project, George Legendre was able to see the creation of Equinox through to its launch in June 2022.

“John was a forward-looking man.  He was intrigued by the computer, even though he himself was not using it. He worked hard with the barest of means.  Working with John supported our budding practice during its first year, but I often felt we should have been the ones supporting him.  Completing Equinox after six years feels like paying off a debt.”   George L. Legendre