Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy of Arts
Till 11th December.
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Watch Anish Kapoor on BBC Imagine
Archive for 'Rob'
2. Millennium Pier to Woolwich Ferry
Introduction
The first Saturday after university commences is tough. Woke this morning in the limbo that exists between the bodies desire to hide in bed away from impending Autumn, and the minds desire to study. The mind always wins in the end. I begin my tasks. So far I have only half a days experience of a small fraction of the Thames study area. So I am a little stressed as I head into London. I hope to recommence the walk from the Dome further on to Woolwich.
1. First Day of School
The first day back at university was quite good in the end & went some way to assuage my fears about the final year. Although in the corridors there are whisperings that all might not be well amongst our esteemed tutors. I only hope I can rely on the tutor to deliver the course we deserve. If issues exist they best sort them and inform the student body before it is too late.
Italy Diaries. Castelvecchio Museum by Carlo Scarpa
A trip to Verona to see the Killers also took in the delight of visiting the Castelvecchio Museum. A delightful building converted by Carlo Scarpa.
Barbara Hepworth Gallery, St Ives
These are some images from the Barbara Hepworth Gallery in St Ives, Cornwall.
Oooh Are!! Zumthor does Devon
As I very excitedly mentioned in my review of the talk at the RIBA, Peter Zumthor is to design a house in Chivelstone in Devon. I am sure that interest has grown since the talk and Zumthor’s subsequent rise to Pritzker Laureate. I am pleased to say that details have been released to the architectural press.
View from Bristol
The Architecture Centre
Aside from visiting the Good Life exhibition at the Arnolfini I also visited the New Growth exhibition at the Bristol Architecture Centre. This is part of the Spring Green 2009 Urban Green Networks programme of events. It promotes and celebrates the green spaces around us and intends to encourage debate about their future.
The New Growth exhibition, in the main gallery, presented works by four artists that considered the biodiversity of brownfield sites. The artists were Rebecca Beinart, Jenna Collins, John Drummett and Andrew Dodds.
The most successful of the exhibitors was Rebecca Beinart who took the chance to explore a tributary of the River Avon called the Malago and a tributary of its own called the Pigeon Stream. This is an excerpt from Rebeccas blog:
The route of the river, although interrupted, provides a transect through the city – a line that passes through very different areas of habitation. Rebecca has walked the Malago with various companions, each one offering a different way of seeing the river, and revealing the multiple relationships that surround this stretch of water, and the land that borders it. She walked with a birdwatcher, a herbalist, historians, a conservationist and campaigner, a representative from the South Bristol Riverscape Project and Bristol City Council.
The Malago has a long history of human habitation, human reverence and human interference. Many local groups take care of different parts of it, but some areas still feel forgotten. The Malago is a wildlife haven in some places, a rubbish dump in others. Surprisingly the two do not always contradict one another. Walking the river, one gets the sense of being on an edge, behind the scenes of the city. There are glimpses of back gardens, gasworks, industrial estates, and occasionally moments when you could believe yourself to be in a rural valley.
The material from these research walks will inform a public walk, being developed in collaboration with Pete Harrison.
I felt that Rebecca best displayed the intention of the brief by taking on a natural phenomenon and documenting its changed surrounding. The exploration transcends the many landscapes and hinterlands of the cityscape. I like how she always linked back to the natural by the presence of the Malago.
More Architecture Centre events including details of a talk by Ken Yeang on Ecomimesis
Other links:
May 2009
Including talks by James Lovelock, Wayne Hemingway, Ken Yeang and Paddy Ashdown
Zumthor: 2009 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate
Peter Zumthor has been honoured by being named the 2009 Priztker Prize Laureate.
This is the citation from the prize jury:
Peter Zumthor is a master architect admired by his colleagues around the world for work that is focused, uncompromising and exceptionally determined. He has conceived his method of practice almost as carefully as each of his projects. For 30 years, he has been based in the remote village of Haldenstein in the Swiss mountains, removed from the flurry of activity of the international architectural scene. There, together with a small team, he develops buildings of great integrity -untouched by fad or fashion. Declining a majority of the commissions that come his way, he only accepts a project if he feels a deep affinity for its program, and from the moment of commitment, his devotion is complete, overseeing the project’s realization to the very last detail.
His buildings have a commanding presence, yet they prove the power of judicious intervention, showing us again and again that modesty in approach and boldness in overall result are not mutually exclusive. Humility resides alongside strength. While some have called his architecture quiet, his buildings masterfully assert their presence, engaging many of our senses, not just our sight but also our senses of touch, hearing and smell.
Zumthor has a keen ability to create places that are much more than a single building. His architecture expresses respect for the primacy of the site, the legacy of a local culture and the invaluable lessons of architectural history. The Kolumba Museum in Cologne, for example, is not only a startling contemporary work but also one that is completely at ease with its many layers of history. Here, Zumthor has produced a building that emerges from the remains of a bombed church in the most inevitable and lyrical of ways, intertwining place and memory in an entirely new palimpsest. This has always been the compelling character of this architect’s work, from the singular yet universal breath of faith inscribed in the tiny field chapel in the village of Wachendorf, Germany, to the mineral mist in the thermal baths at Vals, Switzerland. For him, the role of the architect is not just to construct a fixed object but also to anticipate and choreograph the experience of moving through and around a building.
In Zumthor’s skillful hands, like those of the consummate craftsman, materials from cedar shingles to sandblasted glass are used in a way that celebrates their own unique qualities, all in the service of an architecture of permanence. The same penetrating vision and subtle poetry are evident in his writings as well, which, like his portfolio of buildings, have inspired generations of students. In paring down architecture to its barest yet most sumptuous essentials, he has reaffirmed architecture’s indispensable place in a fragile world. For all of these reasons, Peter Zumthor is the recipient of the 2009 Pritzker Architecture Prize.
I have written extensively on the work of Peter Zumthor. Some of you may have read my previous articles and excerpts from my dissertation:
RIBA Lecture: Peter Zumthor Dreaming of Buildings Coming True
Caplutta, Sogn Bendegt. An excerpt from my dissertation.
Peter Zumthor. An excerpt from my dissertation
My previous articles are echoed in the sentiments of the prize jury. They are fastidious in the recognition of the characteristics that have made Zumthor such a deserved recipient of this great prize. Anyone who witnessed Zumthor’s talk at the RIBA will recognise the “focussed, uncompromising and determined” approach. Zumthor presented a range of projects each going through the same passionate thought process; “To the very last detail”, as the citation says.
Having visited many of Zumthor’s built works I agree that they are conceived as a some of many parts that create a highly accomplished whole. The sketches and models are as much a part of the process as the choice of placement, materials and construction process. I am determined to see the Kolumba Diocesan Museum in Cologne as I know it will provide with the same joy as visiting the very humble chapel at Sogn Benedegt.
I would also agree when the jury states that the “role of the architect is not just to construct a fixed object but also to anticipate and choreograph the experience of moving through and around a building”. For you to understand this statement you must experience the Therme at Vals. The experience of meandering around this building is quite something to behold.
I would like to end by saying that long may Mr Zumthor continue his fine work and long may others look to him and be inspired by his desire to carry on sketching, crafting and creating.
Alison and Peter Smithson: The Architects who Made London: Royal Academy of Arts Series
Presented by Maxwell Hutchinson
Lecture by Max Risselada
Max Risselada, Maxwell Hutchinson, a loud lady in the back row and the AA dominated audience had me believing I was witnessing the work of the two of the greatest architects of a generation. Certainly in light of the recent debate surrounding the future of Robin Hood Gardens the Smithson’s are currently a hot topic. The question I left Royal Academy of Arts Lecture with was why?
Let’s consider the very convincing argument put forth by Risselada and Hutchinson. Risselada presented key projects by the husband and wife. He began by setting the scene with some early projects: a modest private house; Bath University Faculty of Architecture and the Hunstanton School. The main focus was on the Economist Building and the Robin Hood Gardens Estate (RHG).
The Economist Building is probably the Smithson’s most successful execution of their ideas. It is delicately stitched within the historic fabric of St James. The complex consists of 3 pavilions, 2 of which sit on a podium creating an open piazza for the user. Risselada was keen to emphasise the “Baroque effect” of the buildings. Drawing on a photo by Carl Pigeon he draw the audience to the way the vertical banding of Portland stone allowed the smaller pavilion facing the street to merge with it’s older neighbours. He was also keen to emphasise the route between. On experiencing the space between the buildings I would be inclined to agree with his comments. Overall I would say that it is a very honest set of buildings, in a very honest clean area, Miesian in style, but ultimately uninspiring.
Finally Risselada presents Robin Hood Gardens. He described it as a “monumental housing estate…a result of the welfare state”. The images he presents are less monumental. The aerial view of the time illustrates the two long blocks looking over the barren undulated central space. Closer views reveal a huge wall for acoustic purposes, there is mention of a moat. Finally a section reveals the “streets in the sky” concept. And that was it! Risselada brought his presentation to an end on a less than auspicious note. I felt very unconvinced by the Smithson’s. To me they sound like a brand than too people.
The discussion between Risselada and Hutchinson brought little critcism. Hutchinson was keen to draw on his memories of them at the AA. The great thinkers, the great educators…etc. Many of the audience were also keen to engage in nostalgia of their late collegues, educators and friends the Smithson’s. Having seen Risselada’s presentation and then heard the discussion afterwards I cannot see the connection between the thinkers and the Architects. One has an idea of living. But ones idea does not translate well into Robin Hood Gardens.
I am inclined top fall on the side of those who wish to see RHG knocked down to make way for something more in keeping with modern living. My reasoning is that this building is not fit for purpose? Let me pose this question. Would you and your family wish to live in this block of flats? This by all descriptions is the most unsociable of social housing. Hutchinson and Risselada maybe keen to draw the eye towards beautiful mullion details but as a user I am sure mullion details are not high on the agenda. The agenda is more to run the gauntlet of claustrophobic stairs in the air, dank “streets in the sky”, and menacing muggers in the shadows.
By modern living I don’t mean street’s in the sky but a street at ground level. By modern living I don’t wish to see a gentrified, Waitrose induced shot in the arm, in the manner of the Brunswick. I wish to see a proper community. BD put the argument for and against. As the arguments for have been put so avidly by Risselada and Hutchinson, and by Mark Ellery lets hear the opposing view. In BD, Lutfur Rahman pleads to “put people before buildings…whatever the questionable architectural merits of the present buildings, the living standards for thousands of residents in one of the poorest parts of London must come first”. If 80% of residents of RHG have voted with their feet to leave the blighted buildings, then it is time to listen. The experiments are over!
I am more inclined to agree with Hugh Pearman’s assessment of the Smithson’s. “The Smithsons (Alison died in 1993, Peter in 2003) always promised far more than they could ever deliver”. What came after RHG? Where did the talk, and the acclaim, lead? “They are a warning to all the architectural hypemeisters at large today: in the end, posterity ignores your blather and judges you only on what you build” (Pearman, 2009). To me this was ‘talk the talk’ architecture, than anything else. In future turn down the volume and get on with the listening.
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