Congratulations

Congratulations to Richard, Ned, Al, Josh, Fed, Jack, Jon and Joe on their First Class Degrees. The images above are from their year 3 portfolios in name order from left to right.

Unit B Summer Exhibition 2011

The Unit B Summer Exhibition is presently open in London, at Chetwoods Architects, 12 - 13 Clerkenwell Green, London, EC1R 0QJ until the 19th July 2011, from 10am - 4pm (mon - fri).

Interview with Peter Zumthor

Interview: Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2011 by Peter Zumthor from Dezeen on Vimeo.

Summer Shows and exhibitions

This is the time to visit the summer shows. In London the RCA, AA and Westminster shows are now on and the Bartlett show starts on the 1st July.

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is also still open until 15th August, and also at the Royal Academy is an exhibition of recent work by Morphosis until 18th September (see image above). All well worth a visit for inspiration.

Peter Zumthor's Serpentine Pavilion

Peter Zumthor's first building in the UK, the 2011 Serpentine Pavilion, is now complete and has been open to the press. It opens to the public on the 1st July. The Guardian report that Peter Zumthor said at the opening: "This should be an escape, a place where nature is framed and compressed....Make of it what you like. There is no hidden, or even obvious, meaning here. This is a place for you to be. To be. Nothing else." Zumthor's written statement also said: "Every time I imagine a garden in an architectural setting, it turns into a magical place. I think of gardens I have seen, that I believe I have seen, that I long to see, surrounded by simple walls, columns, arcades or the facades of buildings – sheltered places of great intimacy where I want to stay for a long time." Read the full article here.

Longplayer - Jem Finer

Longplayer is a thousand year long piece composed by Jem Finer which began playing on the first January 2000 and will run on until 31st December 2999. This will be the first full cycle of the competition will then will restart. It can be heard at Trinity Buoy Wharf and also at the Science Museum in London along with a number of other locations around the world and it is also streamed live on the internet.

On Monday 18th April 2011 James Lovelock and John Gray will be discussing long time at the RIBA as part of the Longplayer project.
More information and live audio feed here.
Longplayer site here.

Peter Zumthor Serpentine Pavilion

Speaking about the design for this years Serpentine Pavilion Peter Zumthor said ‘the concept for this year’s Pavilion is the hortus conclusus, a contemplative room, a garden within a garden. The building acts as a stage, a backdrop for the interior garden of flowers and light. Through blackness and shadow one enters the building from the lawn and begins the transition into the central garden, a place abstracted from the world of noise and traffic and the smells of London – an interior space within which to sit, to walk, to observe the flowers. This experience will be intense and memorable, as will the materials themselves – full of memory and time.’ The pavilion ‘aims to help its audience take the time to relax, to observe and then, perhaps, start to talk again - maybe not.’
More images and information here.
Good article from Independent summing up Zumthor's approach here. 'Zumthor is Mr Atmosphere, the unchallenged master in creating spaces of sensual, pregnant stillness: the vibe is utterly anti-free market, anti-bling. He is a modernist, but his obsessions with memory, shifts of ambience, and meticulously crafted surfaces and details are timeless. Zumthor's Kolumba Museum in Cologne, for example, lacks only the overlapping chants of plainsong to make it a monastery of art.' Jay Merrick, Independent.

Man Made

Fed found information on Stephen Burks’ exhibition Man Made at The Studio Museum in New York... 'makes us reconsider both the conceptual and the aesthetical value of a handmade object, or design product.'
Article here.