No Violence To The Sky
A video mapping installation that re-reads One Canada Square through reflections and distortions, using indirect views to examine architecture, place, and change over time.
No Violence To The Sky is a video mapping installation that responds to the writings of architect César Pelli by looking at One Canada Square indirectly rather than head on. Instead of presenting the tower as a fixed icon, the work follows the building as it appears in reflections, fragments, and distortions across the surrounding environment. Through this secondary architecture, the installation turns a familiar landmark into something unstable, changing, and contingent on its relation to place.
The building is understood here through its indirect appearances, not through a stable frontal view. Reflections and distortions turn architecture into something contingent on context and surface, which is exactly where May’s wider practice often operates: in the gap between what seems permanent and what media reveal as unstable.
Additional notes
- Inspired by César Pelli’s book Observations for Young Architects.
- Commissioned by Keith Watson at Level39, One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London.
- First shown from 11 March 2016.
- Developed in response to Pelli’s idea that architecture should not do violence to its place.