#5 UNEARTHED/Carpenters Road
50 stories from The Acme Archive
The Carpenters Road studio building was home to over 500 artists across over 160 studios between 1985 and 2001 and, at the time, was the largest single block of artist studios in the world. Artists with studios at Carpenters Road included Grayson Perry, Rachel Whiteread and Richard Kingsnorth (Acme's Co-Director!). The building was demolished in advance of the development of the Olympic Park and the London Aquatics Centre now sits on the site.
In 2011, Olympic Delivery Authority artist in residence, Neville Gabie, worked with Acme, InSite Arts, archaeologist James Dixon and many of the past tenants of Carpenters Road to create an archive and exhibition of the building and its artist community. The exhibition was on display between 3-11 September 2011 at Ardmore Construction’s offices at Warton House, which would later open as an Acme Studio building in 2014.