London School of Economic’s (LSE) New Academic Building is Square the Block, a striking but subtle addition to the original building

Walking past the intersection of Kingsway and Sardinia Street in London’s Holborn you could easily miss the new installation by Richard Wilson. On the corner of the London School of Economic’s (LSE) New Academic Building is Square the Block, a striking but subtle addition to the original building. The installation stems from the LSE’s long tradition of commissioning public art and is one of two art works celebrating the building’s refurbishment, curated and produced by the Contemporary Arts Society.

When Wilson won this competition in 2007 his proposal was to place a corner where none existed. This huge five-storey structure is remarkably deceptive due to its construction from jesmonite, a lightweight moulded acrylic fibreglass, the attention to detail and matching of colouring, which is so precise that you could easily be convinced into thinking it’s the real thing. To construct the mould, Wilson worked with drawings by Nicholas Grimshaw who renovated the existing building, carefully detailing original features.

The sculpture’s edges are copied from two chosen vertical areas on the building’s sides, to make a convincing completed corner. Square the Block has arguably got him close to the role of architect because here he has provided another solution to how the building should turn the corner. This is one of his most permanent structures yet and gaining planning permission from Camden Council was not straightforward. Its expected life span is about 40 years, so it will no doubt become a familiar landmark on the journey along Kingsway.

The view from the top of a bus sees it nestling discreetly behind the trees, but from street level your eye first meets a crunched up pile of rubble. This deconstructed part begins at first floor level (partly the artist’s answer to freeing up the pavement) and is the ‘spectacle’ of the piece, what Wilson describes as his ‘wow’ factor – a device designed to grab your attention, luring you into examining the structure more closely.

Wilson’s initial thought process involved playing with different materials: perhaps a corner constructed of cardboard boxes? Or perhaps of glass and marble mimicking the materials of the building across the road? Settling on a copy of the original stone effectively leads us to a slower discovery. Wilson likes to think of buildings, concrete and stone as being temporary, evolving in skilled hands – he is fascinated by the possibility that permanent structures could be adapted and changed, a ‘slow event’.

His excitement comes from unsettling preconceptions, and architectural solidity is one of the most profound. Here, as in his recent work in Liverpool, Turning the place over, he literally turns the rules of architecture upside down.