London Architecture Diary

Editor's Choice

Previous Editors:

Guest Editor, August 2010
Abraham Thomas
Curator, Victoria & Albert Museum

Commanding a fine view of the Thames at Hammersmith - the Emery Walker House is a Georgian terraced building with a secret. This softly-spoken architectural gem was the erstwhile residence of the typographer Emery Walker - friend and mentor to William Morris - and contains perhaps the best surviving original Arts & Crafts interior in the country. Crammed full with furniture, wallpapers and textiles by Morris, Philip Webb and other notables, this house has been open to the public since 1999, yet due to a lack of funding will be accessible from 2011 onwards on a limited basis only. Plans for the future are uncertain, yet the house defiantly remains open for the rest of this summer at least, on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, until the end of September. Visits need to be booked in advance – so find a date in your diary to check out this hidden treasure before it closes its doors forever.

Taking a leisurely cruise eastwards up the Thames, jumping off at the South Bank, we find ourselves at the BFI where the ‘Film Science: Future Human’ season continues. Taking its cue from a thread of work originating in the late 1960s and early 1970s - visions of sci-fi architectural dystopia as exemplified by Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ and Douglas Trumbull’s ‘Silent Running’ – these screenings carve a route through the abandoned industrial landscapes of Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘Stalker’, the post-apocalyptic world of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s ‘City of Lost Children’ and bring us right up to last year’s ‘Moon’, directed by Duncan ‘Zowie Bowie’ Jones – a film boasting production design which seems to channel the free-thinking rounded corners of Raymond Loewy’s interior designs for NASA’s 1960s Skylab space station programme.

August offers a final opportunity to see the Oscar Tuazon exhibition at the ICA. ‘My Mistake’ presents a radical, site-specific installation consisting of huge wooden beams assembled into an aggressive series of interconnected cubic frames which spill out beyond the confines of the formally-designated gallery spaces, punching through walls, inhabiting corridors, and challenging the physical constraints of the building. Portland-based author Matthew Stadler, a former literary editor for ‘Nest’ magazine who has written extensively on issues around urbanism and public space, will be delivering a reading in the exhibition space on 15th August.

Stepping out of the ICA, up the Duke of York steps and towards Piccadilly, we arrive at the Royal Academy and the Summer Exhibition – which closes on 22nd August. Head to the Architecture Room, this year organised by David Chipperfield, and which for 2010 has been allocated the luxurious space of the Lecture Room. On the 13th August, Stephanie MacDonald of 6a Architects will be in conversation with the RA’s Kate Goodwin to discuss 6a’s submission, ‘Mines Park model: A New English Country House’ which recently won the Bovis Lend Lease / AJ award for first-time exhibitors.

You can also catch Stephanie in conversation on 5th August, when she’ll be taking part in the closing picnic for ‘Moss Your City’ – the wonderful installation by Norwegian practice PUSHAK at The Architecture Foundation. Expounding on recent research undertaken by 6a into the environmental benefits and psychological relief gained from growing moss on urban walls, she will be joined by Sebastian Noel from Troika – the studio responsible for a number of installations in Thomas Heatherwick’s UK Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo which explore the notion of ‘greening’ the city. So come along, bring your own picnic, take a seat amongst these mossy living walls and join the discussion!

Editor's Choice:
Thu 8th April 2010 - Sat 25th September 2010
The Emery Walker House: 7 Hammersmith Terrace 7 Hammersmith Terrace, W6 9TJ. Organised by: Emery Walker Trust
Fri 4th June 2010 - Sun 15th August 2010
Oscar Tuazon: My Mistake The Mall, SW1Y 5AH. Organised by: ICA - Institute of Contemporary Arts
Mon 14th June 2010 - Sun 22nd August 2010
Summer Exhibition: Architecture Room Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W1J 0BD. Organised by: Royal Academy of Arts

Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W1J 0BD. Organised by: Royal Academy of Arts
Sat 19th June 2010 - Fri 6th August 2010
Moss Your City: An installation by PUSHAK The Architecture Foundation, 136-148 Tooley Street, SE1 2TU. Organised by: The Architecture Foundation
Sun 1st August 2010 - Tue 31st August 2010
Film Science: Future Human Part Two BFI Southbank, SE1 8XT . Organised by: BFI
Sun 1st August 2010 - Sun 8th August 2010
Stalker BFI Southbank, SE1 8XT. Organised by: BFI
Thu 5th August 2010
Moss Your City: Closing Picnic with 6a architects and Troika Ground Floor East, 136-148 Tooley Street, WC2R 1LA. Organised by: The Architecture Foundation
Thu 5th August 2010 - Sun 8th August 2010
The City of Lost Children + Q&A with director Marc Caro BFI Southbank, SE1 8XT. Organised by: BFI
Sun 15th August 2010
Matthew Stadler Reading The Mall, SW1Y 5AH. Organised by: ICA - Institute of Contemporary Arts
Sat 28th August 2010 - Mon 30th August 2010
Moon BFI Southbank, SE1 8XT . Organised by: BFI


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