Installation Preview: Black Maria, The Crossing, London, until March 12 2013

In 2002, prolific installation imaginaries Artangel turned part of King’s Cross into An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, encouraging visitors to wander into unremarkable shops and alleyways in pursuit of new viewpoints.

Richard Wentworth, who lives in the area, has taken inspiration for his new structure, Black Maria, from the same kind of proposition.

“You have to magnetise some venues more than others,” hypothesises the artist. “It’s so that people who feel they are there ‘by accident’ are mixed with people who have a clear ‘sense of purpose’. This is an obvious condition of metropolitan space.”

Working with Swiss architects Gruppe, Wentworth wants Black Maria to seize on chance circumstances, sitting at one end of a crossroads in the Granary Building which forms the new home of Central Saint Martins College.

Although it unites art school departments, commercial tenants, a restaurant and passers by, the installation is also a massive billboard with the potential to let audiences see beyond it through a large door, turning an ostensibly neutral walkway into an event and gathering space.

The deceptive timber scaffolding recalls King’s Cross’ industrial past, but it will serve to accommodate talks on the nature of cities, with the public able to submit ideas to a dedicated online Users Club.

This is the latest in Relay, the three-year art programme for this London throughfare, launched in 2011 when a nine-metre high, dome-shaped neon cage allowed visitors to sit on a swing at its centre thanks to French artist-architect Jacques Rival.

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