What is House of Annetta?
What do we do?
House of Annetta is a project to repair and imagine the future of the former home of Annetta Pedretti, in Spitalfields, East London. She was a cybernetician and trained architectural designer, and the building became her life-work from 1980 until her death in 2018.From the her home at 25 Princelet Street, a Huguenot Merchants House built 1705, Annetta was able to act in relation to the changing city around her: the changing skyline of the financial district in the City of London; the new development zone of Canary Wharf, the multicultural communities finding a home in the East End. She was an active campaigner, designing different ways to bring people together and share their demands for change.
Today, House of Annetta aims to benefit individuals, groups, and organisations committed to spatial justice, especially those negatively impacted by the financialisation of land and property. This includes communities fighting for access to housing, or public space.
Space Use
We offer free and low-cost access to space to aligned organisations. Space is important to meet each other, test things out and share ideas. We challenge the privatisation of space, particularly in the city centre, by providing rooms and resources. Find out more.Learning
We facilitate a yearly cohort, Systems RIP, to undertake action-research on the systems that we interact with in our daily lives: from food production to material extraction. We encourage creative and experimental ways of engaging with issues that connect the social with the spatial.We’re also developing a learning program for heritage crafts, which will grow as we move into the holistic repair of the building. We also support organisations to develop through mentorship and programming opportunities. Find out more.
Archive and Community Press
Inspired by Annetta’s practice in fostering exchange through conversation, printed books and performance, we have established a printing press in collaboration with collective Slow + Dirty. The Risograph printer is available at low-cost for community groups and campaigns; and publishes projects by user-groups of House of Annetta. Find out more.Who was Annetta Pedretti?
Annetta (1954-2018) was born in Celerina, Switzerland. She came to London to study Architecture at the Architectural Association, where she encountered cybernetics. She went on to write a PhD, The Cybernetics of Language (1981), at Brunel University under the supervision of Gordon Pask. Her work on language and reference informed her interdisciplinary, intermedia book, video and performance works.She bought 25 Princelet Street in 1980, and became her home and life-work until the end of her life. She established princelet editions, an experimental press in 1981. She undertook a decades-long process of dismantling and repair in the building, as well as philosophical learning and local activism. From around 2000 onwards her focus shifted to honey bees. She designed a new system of bee-stewarding, in Spitalfields as well as in Enfield, North London, distributing jars of honey locally.
Annetta’s honey.
The building
25 Princelet Street was built in 1705 as a house for a Huguenot Silk Merchant by local brewer Ben Truman. Over the centuries, as the area became a home for new migrants to the UK from Ireland, Eastern Europe and Bangladesh, the building was divided into rooms, and used for textile industry production, as a hostel for homeless workers, as well as individual family bedsits. By the 1970s, the street had been designated for demolition as part of a programme of urban redevelopment.Annetta was introduced to the building by then squatter and now Architectural Historian Dan Cruickshanks. He had been involved in protecting 18thC buildings in the local area from being knocked down by occupying them, forming the Spitalfields Trust as a legal and advocacy body to find new owners for the buildings who could take on the work of restoring them.
Over the years Annetta stripped back the 20th century layers which had been added to the building, revealing a historic fire which had affected the staircase. She rebuilt the windows, repointed the brickwork, repaired the roof, as well as making timber panels to line the walls. She made a new staircase in the basement, with built-in drawers which get progressively deeper. She constructed an experimental structure in the back garden. She left the building unfinished when she died, with a large stock of salvaged woods, partially built staircase spindles, and decorative framework around the house.
The proposal is to repair the building, reusing as much of the material Annetta left behind as possible, as well as developing new innovative architectural products based on local waste material. We will open up the basement and attic floors to the public, and create a new circulation system.
What’s happened so far?
When Annetta died without a will in 2018, her family gave the building and its contents to the Stiftung Edith Maryon, a Swiss foundation set up to “remove buildings from speculation so that it can be used in a socially responsible manner”. Speculation is the process of trading land and property for profit. They approached architecture and design collective Assemble to think about what to do with the semi-derelict building. In December 2020, House of Annetta opened to the public with the Save Brick Lane exhibition.In 2022 Assemble established a new organisation, House of Annetta CIC, in order to build on Annetta’s legacy, to test out ways of using the building, and to develop a sustainable proposal for its future.
What is the plan for the future?
We are in the process of fundraising for repair works to make the building wheelchair accessible, and retrofitted so that it is a bit warmer in winter. We also want to fit out the different spaces as a community resource: with a range of spaces for meetings, arts production, and an archive dedicated to women in Cybernetics. The repair process will be delivered as a series of training courses.Once the building is repaired, House of Annetta will continue to provide low-cost space and resources for people and organisations working towards spatial justice. We will host a programme of courses and learning events, combining practical building maintenance and supporting neighbourhood retrofit. We will reprint Annetta’s books as a ‘living book’, alongside new creative responses.
The building will be a space for meeting and learning.
Who is involved?
House of Annetta CIC
The project is being developed by House of Annetta CIC. We are made up of people with connections to local housing campaigns, and community-led development.Current HOA CIC members are Saif Osmani, Frances Northrop, Fran Edgerley, and Aska Welford.
Stewards
Stewards take care of the day-to-day running of the space, coordinate maintenance, and develop the future of the project.Fran was a founding partner of architectural design collective Assemble. Through their organisational development work, they came to understand the value and power in access to land, such as for child-led Baltic Street Adventure Playground in Glasgow, or Community Land Trust neighbourhood repair in Liverpool. They left in 2022 in order to set up House of Annetta CIC and support the long-term development of the project.
Aska grew up in Tower Hamlets and went to nursery on Brick Lane. After training in architecture and working in social housing, they were part of a workers enquiry, which lead to the formation of the first trade union in architecture since the 1980s.
Fabricators
We have worked with craftspeople to carry out craft commissions, furniture building and repairs: making the space more usable, testing out learning methods and the future repair strategy, and building on Annetta’s practice.- ⏍ Imani Qamar: Garden Planters
- ☡ Monika Kolarz: Handrail
- ◘ Emma Leslie: Kitchen
- ✾ Ella Khafaji and Leila Dear: Lampshades
- ✲ Daisy Moore: Rooflights
- ﹆Ash, James and Sofia: Second Floor
- ⚡︎ Tash, Regan, Nicola: Rewiring (Amy’s Electrics)
- ⌲ Het Thompson: Door Knocker