about HoA
Spitalfields; where the east end meets the city of London has for centuries been a site of friction for the tectonic forces of capital and human life, a historic site of organising and people trying new things. In amongst this history sits 25 Princelet St, a large and beautiful Huguenot house built in 1705 that for the past 40 years has held an extraordinary story.
In 1980, artist and activist Annetta Pedretti came to live in the house, inhabiting it as a space for her experimental way of learning and organising community resistance. Annetta’s special area of interest and exploration was cybernetics, the study of self-regulating systems. Annetta was working with cybernetics in her beekeeping, publishing, art-making, political activism and day-to-day conversation.
At her death in 2018, Annetta’s house was gifted by her family to the Edith Maryon Foundation in Switzerland who appointed the architectural collective Assemble to develop a future for the semi-renovated building. Assemble are working in collaboration with the research organisation ab__ to develop the project into a centre for research, arts and solidarity work towards transformative systems change.
Today the house is continuing the threads Annetta wove, exploring approaches and ideas for the ways we reproduce the world through our daily lives.
In 1980, artist and activist Annetta Pedretti came to live in the house, inhabiting it as a space for her experimental way of learning and organising community resistance. Annetta’s special area of interest and exploration was cybernetics, the study of self-regulating systems. Annetta was working with cybernetics in her beekeeping, publishing, art-making, political activism and day-to-day conversation.
At her death in 2018, Annetta’s house was gifted by her family to the Edith Maryon Foundation in Switzerland who appointed the architectural collective Assemble to develop a future for the semi-renovated building. Assemble are working in collaboration with the research organisation ab__ to develop the project into a centre for research, arts and solidarity work towards transformative systems change.
Today the house is continuing the threads Annetta wove, exploring approaches and ideas for the ways we reproduce the world through our daily lives.
who’s involved
who’s involved
ab__
An action research network, members of which are leading on the operation and stewardship of the house.
wyo
assemble
Assemble is a multi-disciplinary collective working across architecture, design and art. Founded in 2010, Assemble has delivered a diverse and award-winning body of work, retaining a democratic and co-operative working method that enables built, social and research based work at a variety of scales.
annetta pedretti
Annetta used the house to create a powerful collection of theoretical, architectural and artistic projects. Stewards of the house did not know her in her lifetime but are developing the project in response to our ongoing learning from her work.
edith maryon foundation
This is the first UK project by SEM. the nonprofit foundation sees its mission as removing, in dialogue with owners and users, land and properties from the stream of commerce and inheritance in such a way that they are no longer objects of speculation but instead made available,permanently but flexibly, to new projects that serve society. in each of their projects - of which there are over 100, the primary
goal in each case is to enduringly secure socially responsible places of residence and work. the foundation strives to a create a situation of
transparency in regard to questions of land use, and is committed to high-density and mixed-use development, to biodynamic agriculture, and to green
building methods.
pho