About the event
When: 15 to 21 September, Weekdays: 10am to 5pm (last entry 4.30pm) with a late night on 18 September until 8pm (last entry 7.30), Weekends: 11am to 4pm (last entry 3.30pm).
Cheapside Business Alliance has supported a striking collaboration between the Bank of England, Plasticiet and Surface Matter, which will unveil a new exhibition for the London Design Festival: a sculptural installation made from £2.5 million worth of reclaimed, recycled and reconstructed British bank notes. Cast into bespoke curved forms and arranged to create the iconic pound symbol (£), the pieces debut in the Stock room of the Bank of England Museum — the historic home of Britain’s currency.
Redefining the meaning of money
Once a symbol of economic permanence, as bank notes are removed from circulation, they are shredded, reconstituted and reinvented into architectural, functional and symbolic forms. Inspired by nature and aspiring to co-create a post-waste world, the installation examines how value can be transformed through design.
Drawing loosely from the gravitas of the neoclassical and baroque architecture that forms the heritage of the Bank of England — the forms are playful, sculptural and monumental. They embrace the aesthetics of raw material, creating a visual dialogue between past and present, order and improvisation. The result is a new language of reuse — one that redefines legacy through material transformation.
Materials and the building of the Bank
The exhibition complements the Building of the Bank exhibition, which explores the evolution of the Bank of England’s design — from Sir John Soane’s original architecture to its present-day structure and materials.
To accompany the furniture installation, Surface Matter presents a curated series of material palettes. These recycled surfaces reinterpret the colour, texture and materiality of the bank’s historic interiors — from roman mosaic tiles and Portland stone, to timber joinery, patinated brass and bronze detailing — alongside palettes referencing the colours of British Bank notes.
Essential Information:
- Entry to the Museum is free, and the Museum is open to the public on Weekdays: 10am to 5pm (last entry 4.30pm) with a late night on 18 September until 8pm (last entry 7.30), and exclusively for the Open House Weekend, 11am to 4pm (last entry 3.30pm).
- No parking is available.
