"Bonkers yet dignified": Inside Grayson Perry's Dream House - inspired by Essex Everywoman

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

Ahead of Channel 4’s screening of the three-year project to create it, see pictures of A House for Essex - Grayson Perry’s homage to his county, happiness and death

Conceived by Alain de Botton’s Living Architecture group, A House for Essex is said to have been inspired by arts and craft houses, English baroque architecture and Stave churches, set out in the style of a pilgrimage chapel and dedicated to a secular saint named Julie Cope.

Set in Wrabness, near the Essex coast, the rentable house reflects Grayson Perry’s repeated desire to explore the county’s qualities, which he describes as “unique”.

Throughout the house, handmade ceramic pots and tapestries depict the fictional life of Cope, who the artist calls an “Essex Everywoman”. Visitors pass through “unfolding” spaces before entering a concealed chapel organised around a framed ceramic statue, overseen by the balconies of two upstairs bedrooms with walk-through cupboards.

“I hope the people who stay in the House for Essex find it playful yet monumental, cosy and maybe slightly disturbing,” says Perry. “It is a three dimensional musing on religion, local history, feminism, happiness and death.”

Charles Holland, of FAT Architecture, planned the layout of the house with Perry, calling it “a radical statement about architecture and its capacity for narrative and communication.”

“The design embraces decoration, ornament and symbolism in order to tell a rich and complex story,” he reflects. “Formally, it is like a Russian doll – a series of archetypal house shapes that step up in scale as the building descends the hill.

“The house is a striking object in its setting, but one that also has formal resonance. It is like a richly encrusted and highly decorated barn, with a healthy dose of Essex bling thrown in.

“Ultimately, it is a built story with something of the qualities of a fairy tale and you come across it as an unlikely, somewhat fantastic surprise. Like Grayson, I was born and brought up in Essex, so the house is both fiction and autobiography.”

Perry has covered the exterior of the house in more than 1,900 original green and ceramic tiles. They depict Julie, who reappears on the roof in a resemblance of a “giant weather vane” alongside a chimney pot and wheel sculpture, as “mother and icon”.

“When Living Architecture offered me the opportunity to collaborate with FAT it was a golden chance to realise a long held ambition to build a secular chapel,” says Perry.

“Charles Holland and I batted ideas back and forth until a bonkers yet dignified design emerged glistening.

“The resulting building is a total art work, a fiction in which you can live, a digital age shrine and a homage to Charles’ and my home county.”

According to the architecture group's website, prices to stay at the house range from £850- £1800 depending on the duration of stay and time of year - the equivalent of between £106 to £150 per person per night.

• The final film, Grayson Perry’s Dream House, in on Channel 4 tonight (May 17 2015) at 9pm. A House for Essex will be available to rent on a short-term holiday basis, sleeping up to four people in two bedrooms. Slots will be allocated by a public ballot which is open to the public. Visit living-architecture.co.uk for more.

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More from Culture24's coverage of Grayson Perry:

Grayson Perry to go back to 80s roots with Provincial Punk show in Margate this summer

Grayson Perry to portray Chris Huhne, Rylan Clark and more in exhibition alongside Channel 4 show

Happy birthday Grayson Perry: Five greatest hits from the people's potter

Museums at Night Curator's Choice: Grayson Perry's taste tribe tapestries in Liverpool

Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/architecture-and-design/art527014-bonkers-yet-dignified-inside-grayson-perry-dream-house-inspired-by-essex-everywoman