An artist who unzipped a town centre office building has replicated the project in Milan.

Alex Chinneck, who rose to fame by creating a sliding housefront in Margate in 2013, recently had his work featured in the Milan Design Week.

Chinneck’s first Italian piece, the Via Tortona installation, sees an old building’s 17-metre-wide façade folding out onto the street.

Inside, walls flap down from zips and a semicircular piece of the floor is also lifted as if by an invisible hand.

Mr Chinneck, who recently moved his studio to Brook, near Ashford, carried out the piece for vaping and heated tobacco brand Iqos.

Designed at his studio outside Wye, construction work was completed at a number of German workshops before being transported to Italy.

The 35-year-old temporary art specialist carried out a similar transformation on Brundett House - situated on the former Kent Wool Growers site in Tannery Lane - last year, ahead of its demolition for a 243-flat development.

Speaking about his Italian debut, Mr Chinneck said: “It’s been an exhilarating experience making these incredibly ambitious projects at Milan Design Week, on an international stage, but I of course look forward to making many more artworks across Kent in the future.”

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