Reading Rooms 2005-now

The first Reading Room, a model of an imagined space with the sole purpose of reading one novel, was made in 2005 during my MA: Drawing at Wimbledon School of art. Reading Rooms have been made sporadically ever since, always in response to novels.

Only 8 of the Reading Rooms have ever been exhibited, with around 50 others packed away in storage, as they were not initially conceived as a collection but more like a series of sketches or instinctive responses. I am currently embarking on a large-scale project to document all of the Reading Rooms and to create a display method for the collection as a whole. Some Reading Rooms will need to be remade where the original iteration was perishable e.g one was made of cake, another needs to be grown (original was a miniature Thyme hedge).

Please do get in touch if you would like to support this work or potentially exhibit the Reading Room collection in the future. 

"Emily Speed’s model Reading Rooms are designed for the reading of a specific book, all novels, with space for only one, or very occasionally, two readers.  The shape, materials, and size of the intimate spaces are chosen according to the text itself, taking cues from the events, characters, and tone to mirror the novel. Speed has made around 60 of these models to date, making the earliest in 2005 and most recently in 2026*. 

The architectural model itself is of great interest to Speed as a medium that presents an ideal, existing as pure potential. Models are delicate, yet symbolic of power, because they can be held and even destroyed by human hands. They also provide an unusual situation, where one can be fully outside of a space and see the whole.  In the context of this display the models become an extension of the books, almost standing in place of them, drawing us into Speed’s personal, physical and spatial response to the stories being told, creating new narratives for us to interact with."

Text by Kate McFarlane, written for the display 'When We Read' in the library at Drawing Room, London 2023. *most recent date amended by me to reflect newer works made since this text was written.