Event Details

Inspired by John Ruskin and Lancaster's historic Castle, cast your own architectural corbel with artist Bijan Amini-Alavijeh

In architecture, a corbel is a structural section that juts out from a wall to carry a weight.

In this workshop, you will learn how to design and construct your own corbel. The workshop takes place in the historic surroundings of Lancaster Castle. As you walk through the medieval John O’ Gaunt Gatehouse at the entrance, look up: you’ll see the battlements built out over corbels.

Led by artist Bijan Amini-Alavijeh, we will look closely at decorative elements of Lancaster Castle, and the ways in which Ruskin himself captured architectural detail. You will create a transcript of your chosen element, and carve your design into clay. Your design will then be cast in plaster, revealing a unique decorative corbel.



Bijan Amini-Alavijeh’s work derives motifs and patterns from Medieval and Persian architecture, and interprets these as both literal and abstracted forms. Created in clay, plaster, wood and cardboard, his works explore systems of mathematics, structure and repetition.

Amini-Alavijeh’s work acts as a documentation of the traditional, the ornamental, the decorative; observing its lack of inclusion in today’s infrastructure, and archiving these elements for future reference. In abstracting Medieval and Persian motifs into their most simplistic form, he seeks to gain both a deeper understanding of the origin of these patterns, while simultaneously creating new arrangements.

Amini-Alavijeh studied BA in Fine Art at the Manchester School of Art. He was a successful applicant to Arts Council England ‘Develop Your Creative Practice’ (2021), and nominated for the Tetley Jerwood Commissions (2020). Recent exhibitions and projects include: Material Matters, Sunny Bank Mills (2021); PISINmail, PISIN (2021); Engagement Artist, Yorkshire Sculpture International (2019).

Photographs: 'Confluence', a collaborative sculpture created for Yorkshire Sculpture International, 2019 (Photo: Jules Lister) and corbels (Photo: Bijan Amini-Alavijeh). Lancaster Castle © Nick Dagger Photography via Lancaster Castle.