Press Release│Renowned English Architect Draws Inspiration from Taiwan's Cities and Natural Landscapes ‘Peter Cook: City and Mountain’ Solo Exhibition at MoCA TAIPEI

The solo exhibition, Peter Cook: City and Mountain, on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MoCA TAIPEI ), features two site-specific installations and 13 digital prints by the renowned English architect known for his experimental designs. Starting with the two endpoints of Street of Secrets and Inclusive Landscapes, informed by Sir Peter Cook’s multiple visits to the island and explorations of its interior, the exhibition presents his imagination for the future of Taiwan through a series of metaphors that suggests a hybrid architecture. The exhibition will be on display at MoCA Studio from June 21 to August 10.
A founder of the avant-garde English architectural group, Archigram, one of Sir Peter Cook’s most well-known architectural works is the Kunsthaus Graz in Austria, also known as the “Friendly Alien.” Cook’s drawings are inextricably linked to his architectural design, as he uses hand-drawn sketches to explore the boundaries of architecture, applying vivid colors and imaginative compositions to create a new way of seeing future cities. This creative approach not only enriches his architectural practice but also holds a profound influence on the world of architecture.

‘City and Mountain’ of Crevices and Imagination
Taiwan has two faces: on its west is a chain of cities and bustling activity, where buildings stand tall, roadways sprawl, and information and capital flow rapidly. In contrast, the rolling mountains of the east present a completely different landscape, with a primal and tranquil coastline that stretches along, gently recounting a different rhythm of life and a sense of time. Shifting from the plains towards the middle are lakes and memories of earthquakes marked by deep cracks. Living in a land of such varied terrain, people are subconsciously influenced by the landscape.
After several visits to Taiwan, Cook has found that his creative imagination has been subtly and successively infiltrated until, in recent drawings, this observed paradox becomes a field for creativity and exploration. A “Street” with ambiguous components is constructed in this exhibition, leading to an “Urbanized Forest” and ultimately to a gleaming “Palace of Hope,” but along the way, there are crevices and deviations. From the other end, the apparently “natural” landscape is the repository of strange outcrops and architectural insertions. From this series of metaphors, a hybrid architecture is suggested, presenting an amalgamation and transformation of cities and nature, with various possibilities for the future reflected.
Sir Peter Cook will visit MoCA TAIPEI on Saturday, July 12, for a discussion with architect Huang Sheng-Yuan of Fieldoffice Architects. Co-organized by MoCA TAIPEI and Jut Art Museum, the forum will be moderated by Shan Shan Huang, Director of Jut Art Museum. It will take the audience into the worlds of the two architects, exploring Cook’s imagination that comes to life on paper and Huang Sheng-Yuan’s free-flowing architectural language, as they come together to illustrate the landscapes unique to this island and transcend the boundaries of architecture.

Artist Biography
Professor Sir Peter Cook RA, founder of Archigram, former Director of the Institute for Contemporary Art, London (the ICA) and Bartlett School of Architecture at University College, London has been a pivotal figure within the global architectural world for over half a century. His ongoing contribution to architectural innovation was recognized via the conferral of an honorary doctorate in April 2010 by the Lund University, Sweden. Peter’s achievements with radical experimentalist group Archigram have been the subject of numerous publications and public exhibitions and were recognized by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2002, when members of the group were awarded the RIBA’s highest award, the Royal Gold Medal.
In 2007, Peter was knighted by the Queen for his services to architecture. He is also a Royal Academician and a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres of the French Republic. Peter is currently a Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art, London. His professorships include those of the Royal Academy, University College London and the Hochschule für Bildende Künste (Städelschule) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Peter has built in Osaka, Berlin, Frankfurt, Madrid, the Kunsthaus in Graz (with Colin Fournier) and university buildings in Vienna, the Gold Coast and Bournemouth (as partner in CRAB Studio). In addition to his past works, Peter is now the director of Peter Cook Studio Crablab, which recently completed the Play Pavilion of Serpentine 2025.
Peter’s continuing work as a lecturer of considerable renown makes him a familiar voice within cultural institutions around the world, where many have enjoyed an opportunity to hear Peter expound (among other subjects) upon his love affair with the slithering, the swarming and the spooky.

For media enquiries, please contact:
Chen Yi-An +886-25523721 ext.222 yianchen@mocataipei.org.tw