Back to the future in the Austin Maxi - but which future? Is it the East End of London in the Georgian era, or are we in the mid-eighties? That’s right, it’s both! Novelist Will Wiles loves his local landmark, Onyx House, which he says is like a toy designer’s idea of a building, a pomo office block that pretends to be an eighties glass structure bursting from the stomach of a neo-Georgian mansion like Ridley Scott’s Alien.
Designed by postmodern maestros CZWG, Onyx House has since been disowned by the architects, but it remains an appealingly bizarre landmark opposite Mile End Station. We discuss humour in architecture, changing tastes and how on earth did anyone get this bonkers piece of architecture past a developer?
Will also chooses another cultural artefact stranded in time: the fantasy art of Boris Vallejo. If you’ve ever seen a barbarian princess on top of a mountain in a chain mail bikini a) where do you live and b) you have probably seen the work of Vallejo, a cultural phenomenon of the 70s and 80s. Will, a fantasy author, shares his enthusiasm for these kitsch cheesecake epics, and debunks any idea that these oil paintings were airbrushed.
Will Wiles is a freelance journalist and has written about everything from Pot Noodles to jumbo jets for the art magazine Apollo. He is also the author of fantasy novelsThe Last Blade Priest, and The Dead Man’s Empire under the name W. P. Wiles, which are published by Angry Robot. He is the author of three literary novels, Care of Wooden Floors (a Betty Trask Prize winner), The Way Inn, and Plume. He’s on BlueSky at @willwiles.bsky.social and Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/wiles_books
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