This towering monument pays homage to the queer mythologies of Strawberry Hill House and its patron Horace Walpole. Horace was a queer man, writer, architect, socialite and the son of the UK’s first prime minister. In 1749, he envisioned Strawberry Hill House in Twickenham – a suburban palace built in the Gothic style, at a time when Palladianism was still in fashion. Inside his secluded mansion, he created a world of his own, where he could explore his identity free from prying eyes. The Neo-Gothic of Strawberry Hill can be understood as a camp act of defiance against the status quo. This act of queer architectural rebellion is not any less relevant today, where we encounter the replacement of LGBTQ+ spaces with towering glass architecture. Strawberry Hill has been preserved as a cultural edifice of the past, yet stripped from its queer narrative. By queering some of Strawberry Hill’s Gothic elements, the monument seeks to revive its memory as a safe space for gender ambiguity. Scaled-down casts of its facade are embellished with glitter and feathers, whereas the traditional four-pillar colonnade, found in the house’s lush interior, gets a twisted makeover, representing bodies during sexual intercourse.

(12mm plywood, plaster , glitter )