This Valentine’s workshop lets you lovingly destroy London landmarks — then rebuild them as art

If your relationship with London tends to bounce between starry-eyed appreciation and quietly muttering about packed tubes and £7 coffees, there’s a Valentine’s event that might feel quite cathartic.

The London Archives is hosting a hands-on creative workshop that actively encourages visitors to dismantle some of the capital’s most recognisable landmarks, before rebuilding them into something completely new. It’s basically an arts-and-crafts session for anyone who’s ever had strong opinions about the city skyline but never quite found a productive way to express them (*cough cough* we're looking at you Seann Walsh)

The session, titled Wreckage and Repair – Destroy and Rebuild Your Favourite London Landmark!, is being led by artist and illustrator Agustin Coll. His work is known for turning buildings into playful, character-filled creations that blur the line between architecture and personality.

Participants will work from a curated selection of historic photographs pulled directly from The London Archives’ vast collection. That means you won’t just be chopping up glossy postcard versions of the capital, you’ll be working with imagery that captures different eras of London’s evolution, giving the workshop a subtle history-meets-creativity angle that feels very on brand for the venue.

The session focuses on basic collage techniques, so you don’t need to arrive armed with artistic credentials or a Pinterest-perfect scrapbook aesthetic. The idea is more about experimenting with shapes, textures and storytelling, using familiar buildings as a jumping-off point to create something entirely personal. Whether you decide to lovingly reimagine Tower Bridge as a slightly unhinged cartoon character or finally get revenge on a landmark you’ve been side-eyeing for years is entirely up to you.

The workshop runs on Saturday 14 February from 11am to 3pm at The London Archives in Greater London and costs £25 per person. The four-hour session gives attendees enough time to properly get stuck into the creative process without feeling rushed, while still leaving the rest of the day free for whatever Valentine’s plans, romantic or otherwise, might follow.

Even if you’re firmly anti-Valentine’s, it’s a fairly solid excuse to spend a winter afternoon indoors, making something unusual, and briefly imagining what London might look like if its most famous landmarks had personalities as chaotic as the people who live around them.

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