The Lives of Buildings in the Story of London festival
Architecture Talks at the Whitechapel Gallery - FREE!
A series of hour-long talks with leading London practices including Glowacka Rennie, HuT, Jamie Fobert Architects, Stanton Williams and Witherford Watson Mann, and a critical and philosophical view by Ken Allinson and David Littlefield.
Talks are free of charge so please just turn up on the day in good time for the talk(s) in which you are interested. If you have any queries, e-mail Adrianna at sol@openhouse.org.uk
The Lives of Buildings in partnership with English Heritage and the Mayor of London's Story of London festival offers a packed, exciting and innovative programme designed to engage and inspire everyone interested in learning more about how the capital’s architecture has been created and how it may change and evolve in the future.
Renewing Architecture
Saturday 27 June and Sunday 28 June, Whitechapel Gallery
Hear direct from some of London’s leading architects, writers and critics in a series of free talks at the Whitechapel studio space. Taking place throughout the weekend, architects from both established and upcoming practices will highlight the wealth of creative and innovative approaches to reuse, refurbishment, adaptation and intervention – with a critical and philosophical overview of the idea of ‘renewal’ in architecture by writers and critics.
Saturday 27 June
10.00am Stanton Williams
Alan Stanton and Paul 
Williams will be talking
about
their involvement
with two major renewal and regeneration projects: the creation of an
award-winning landscaped square and visitor facilities at Tower Hill
by the Tower of London, and a new campus for Central Saint Martins/The
University of the Arts at King’s Cross.
12.00pm HÛT
HuT director Andrew Whiting will be discussing a range
of HuT’s projects including 'Hoxton Fins', which references 'Hoxton’s
historical roots as meadow beyond the City walls' with an elevation 'designed
to be reminiscent of buttercups and meadow grass’, and 'Granny Takes
a Trip' – the once infamous 60's boutique on the Kings Road which has
been refurbished and extended and is being relaunched as a gallery
and retail space.
2.00pm Jamie Fobert Architects
Jamie Fobert will talk about his earliest experiments in making insertions
into existing buildings, including his work for Cargo, a restaurant/nightclub
built into Shoreditch railway arches, and for AVEDA, the organic cosmetics
company. He will also describe the design process for The Anderson House—perhaps
the most extreme example of his having created innovative and beautiful
architecture within the tight fabric of London.
4.00pm Ken Allinson
Keeping tabs on what is happening on the scene of London's contemporary
architecture raises some interesting issues. How does one deal with
architecture's intrinsic muteness about its reasons for being? Quality,
yes - but for whom, when, in what circumstance? Is there enough of
it about? Are London's architects introverted and parochial? And are
gorillas wearing lipstick where the cutting edge now is?’
Ken Allinson, architect and author of London's
Contemporary Architecture, discusses such issues in relation
to the publication of the guide's fifth edition this year.
Sunday 28 June
11.00am Witherford Watson Mann
Porous
City:The sociologist, Richard Sennett, refers to the development industries’ prevalent
tactics of demolishing short-lived buildings, as the Brittle City, as witnessed
in the area just to the west of the Whitechapel Art Gallery many times. Large
buildings forming part of the Broadgate development around Liverpool Street Station
are already deemed to be defunct, just 20 years after being completed. In a culture
which only has eyes for new and striking forms, is there any value in making
things which are absorbed into what already exists?
2.00pm Glowacka Rennie
Agnieszka Glowacka of Glowacka
Rennie will centre her talk ‘on our recently completed competition-winning
project of the V&A Ladies Toilet' –
or ‘a gallery which happens to have a toilet in it’,
an example of an imaginative reinvention of an often overlooked public
space, and a fitting one for an exquisite building dedicated to craft,
design and art.
4.00pm David Littlefield
David Littlefield, co-author of 'Architectural Voices: Listening to Old
Buildings', among other works, is a writer who explores the lives of
buildings – how, like people, they age, adapt and accumulate scars.
David asks if there is any such thing as the glory of the newly completed
building; indeed, what is the "authentic" building,
if it is anything other than the building as it exists today?
Many other talks and tours by leading architects are taking place at other locations throughout the weekend, including BDP – architects of the award-winning refurbishment of the King’s Building – and C F Moller Architects – designers of the extraordinary new Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum. Check out the programme for full details.
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