Exhibition

The Marble Arch Youth Assembly was founded in 2026 to work with young people to imagine the future of public space.

Marble Arch is on the precipice of major change. Throughout its history Marble Arch has played a crucial role in the development of London and its civic identity. It’s been a bustling market intersection, a site of execution, a celebratory gateway to a Royal park, a site of protest and demonstration. In one place, it holds the many identities and complexities of a modern city, which is exactly why the project is rooted here, and in Marble Arch's specific history as a place of public assembly and protest.

Today, the monument of Marble Arch sits on a traffic island, isolated from both Oxford Street and Hyde Park. A vehicle-dominated environment has created an overlooked public space, cut off from the city that it was built to welcome, marooned by fourteen lanes of traffic, its grandeur diminished by isolation, noise and poor air quality. It is not a welcoming place, nor is it fitting as a gateway to the West End and London.

During the summer of 2026, the project engaged over 100 young people across the City of Westminster through a series of creative workshops. This exhibition presents their responses, experiences and visions: a series of collages, body maps, a collective manifesto and a model for Marble Arch's future.

The young people who participated in the Youth Assembly are sharing their own ideas for a real project. Their work will be seen and valued by designers and decision-makers, and their ideas have the potential to fundamentally impact the future of the space.

The voice of young people in city making:
Sometimes treated as a homogeneous group, rather than individuals with intersecting identities, diverse communities, and varied ways of associating; young people are seriously underrepresented in discussions about the built environment and urban change.

They navigate the city with distinct needs, and bring a particular energy and vibrancy to the places they pass through. Yet public space rarely caters to them, and young people are rarely given a seat at the table in shaping it, especially at the early stages of design and development.

Design projects must make space to hear ideas about young people’s lives and desires. To create a truly successful public space, we must ensure it serves and is shaped by the next generation, with young people as agents in creating it.

Marble Arch is a place where young people from all over the world converge; tourists, students, residents, workers, people passing through. The potential for it to genuinely serve them is enormous.

The project has four main objectives:
1. Build a grounded, collective picture of young people’s relationship with Marble Arch and the surrounding area.
2. Gain a deep understanding what it means for young people to move freely and independently through Marble Arch and the surrounding area.
3. Create a space where young people can articulate what they would like to see and what they need in the area to thrive.
4. Provide tangible skills, tools and agency that enable young people to meaningfully connect with the development of the city.

The workshops:
The workshops used different topics and methodologies to explore urban democracy in different ways. Together, the outputs from these workshops form a collective vision for Marble Arch, grounded in the lived experiences and hopes of young people across different contexts.