July is the month when lots of things go ‘pop’.
It is a month of pop-up outdoor buildings and events celebrating the start of summer, starting with one of the most exciting things to pop-up in July – the 9th Serpentine Pavilion. The coveted commission is this year designed by Japanese duo SANAA and will be the architects’ first built structure in the UK. It promises to be more of a ‘pavilion’ than some of its predecessors, with no walls, allowing visitors to approach it from any side. The architects describe the design as “floating aluminium, drifting freely between the trees like smoke. The reflective canopy undulates across the site, expanding the park and sky. Its appearance changes according to the weather, allowing it to melt into the surroundings”. Sounds like a beautiful architecture dream. If you want to hear more then don’t make plans for Saturday 11th July, as Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa will be talking about the pavilion as part of the Park Nights series of talks and events. Don’t forget to bring a blanket.
Champagne corks will be popping at openings and private views of degree shows all over town (with a strawberry chaser at the Architecture Association).
Once again the Architectural Association has run an internal student competition to design a summer pavilion – a centrepiece of sorts for its end of year show. This is a chance to see what can be done with cutting edge computer technology (and a lot of students working out which bits of plywood fit where). This year the ‘driftwood’ pavilion will be constructed from 28 layers of 4mm-thick bent plywood. We’ll have to wait and see if it will top last year’s elegant ‘swoosh’.
A stone’s throw from the AA, the Bartlett show will be underway. This degree show always offers an extraordinary and prolific ‘spectacle’ of work, bursting at the seams with weird and wonderful stuff. As always I will be making a beeline for Diploma Unit 17 (but then I am a bit biased in this respect).
The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is here (eat a good breakfast before seeing this expansive and ramblingly enjoyable but always crowded show) and so is the linked annual RA architecture lecture. This year it is the turn of Norwegian practice Snohetta – those folks who nearly got to build a Tate in the sea at Margate, and who have recently completed the very beautiful, landscape-like National Opera & Ballet House in Oslo.
The Hayward’s summer exhibition ‘Walking in My Mind’ explores the “inner working of the artist's imagination through dramatic, large-scale installation art”. The artists include Charles Avery, Thomas Hirschhorn and Yayoi Kusama. From the amazing red and spotty installation by Yayoi Kusama on preview material and following last year’s brilliant ‘Psycho Buildings’, this is promising to be another hugely enjoyable and playful exhibition full of interactive and immersive experiences to delight both adults and kids.
The ‘Furniture of Chandigarh’ is an exhibition of furniture by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret created for the new city of Chandigarh. The restored furniture represents the smaller scale elements of the totally designed environment of the Chandigarh grand project. What is particularly extraordinary is that each piece of handcrafted furniture is different, a total antithesis to Le Corbusier’s mass-produced tubular steel furniture most of us are familiar with. The other reason to see this exhibition is the venue. P3 is the concrete 1960s former construction hall for the University of Westminster School of Architecture and the Built Environment. This vast underground space was famously once used to test concrete for spaghetti junction (now that really sounds like fun).
Back to some more light-hearted, and light-headed, summer pop-ups for you, kicking off with the Doodle Bar. The concept for this project is simple: the whole space is white and the walls, chairs, tables and even waiters are all blank canvasses for you to try out your creative talents on. Filmmakers Squint/Opera and illustrator Serge Seidlitz came up with the idea for the bar, which encourages uncensored creative expression, community involvement and collaboration. You can doodle anywhere you want, although when it comes to staff clothing it is apparently up to the waiters to “draw the line”.
Street Pianos are appearing all over London. The brainchild of artist Luke Jerram and emblazoned with the slogan “Play Me I’m Yours”, these pianos are available to play by any member of the public who would like to share a tune with their fellow citizens (or for those who didn’t get onto Britain’s Got Talent). A dedicated piano tuner spends the day cycling from one piano to the next, making sure the pianos are ready for an impromptu, gratis recital.
Another bar to make a season-long appearance is the Bombay Sapphire Dusk Bar. Designed by Tom Dixon, the outdoor space overlooking the river is constructed from Rodeca, a translucent, polycarbonate construction material which at 6pm every night is lit up to reflect as its name suggests 'l'heure bleue'.
Pop also lands at Somerset House, with a line up of live music including the statuesque songstress Grace Jones, whose music reminds me of my Diploma days. Alternatively grab a cocktail from the Dusk Bar, find a good spot and scare yourself silly by watching ‘Don’t Look Now’ showing as part of the fabulous Film4 Summer Screen series of cinematic treasures. Venice will never seem the same again.
As the weather continues (hopefully) to heat up, and you feel like you are about to ‘snap’ or start to ‘crackle’, I suggest cooling the body and mind in one of London’s characterful outdoor swimming spots. Hot-foot it from the Serpentine Pavilion to the Serpentine Lido where you can swim with the ducks, or if you prefer to keep your glad-rags on, take a rowing boat and trail a lazy hand in the water (make sure you go with a keen rowing companion – it’s surprisingly tricky to keep going straight). North Londoners may prefer to swim with escaped terrapins in the Hampstead Ponds, but as a South Londoner I will be going to the 90m long Tooting Bec Lido - the largest fresh water pool in England. |
| Editor's Choice: |
| Thu 21st May 2009 - Sun 18th October 2009 |
Bombay Sapphire Dusk Bar
Somerset House, Strand, WC2R 1LA.
Organised by: Somerset House
|
 |
| Mon 8th June 2009 - Sun 16th August 2009 |
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2009
Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W1J 0BD.
Organised by: Royal Academy of Arts
|
 |
| Sat 27th June 2009 - Sat 4th July 2009 |
Bartlett Summer Show 2009
Main Quadrangle and Slade Galleries of UCL, Gower St, London WC1, WC1H 0QB.
Organised by: The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL  
|
 |
| Wed 1st July 2009 - Fri 31st July 2009 |
Tooting Bec Lido
Tooting Bec Road, SW16 1RU.
Organised by: London Borough of Wandsworth |
 |
 |
Hampstead Ponds
Hampstead Heath, NW5 1QR.
Organised by: City of London |
 |
|
Serpentine Lido
Hyde Park, W2 3XA.
Organised by: Serpentine Lido |
 |
|
Doodle Bar
33 Parkgate Road, SW11 4NP.
Organised by: Doodle Bar |
 |
| Fri 3rd July 2009 - Sat 25th July 2009 |
AA Summer Pavilion
Bedford Square, WC1B 3ES.
Organised by: AA School of Architecture |
 |
| Sat 11th July 2009 |
Kazuyp Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA Talk
Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, W2 3XA.
Organised by: Serpentine Gallery
|
 |
| Sun 12th July 2009 - Sun 18th October 2009 |
Serpentine Pavilion
Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, W2 3XA.
Organised by: Serpentine Gallery
|
 |
| Thu 30th July 2009 - Sat 8th August 2009 |
Film4 Summer Screen
Somerset House, Strand, WC2R 1LA.
Organised by: Somerset House
|
 |
|
