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AARCHITECTURE - FOCUSING ON RELEVANT SUBJECTS FOR ISSUE. EACH WITH THE REDESIGN OF ISSUE 16, LENDS ITSELF TO THEMATIC FORMAT LAUNCHED OF THE NEWSLETTER, FOCUS ON FOR 17? AARCHITECTURE THE NEW WHAT SUBJECT TO YEAR, EACH PLACE BETTER TO THE EVER-EVOLVING THAT EXHIBITIONS TAKE ORGANISATION STUDENT AND PORTFOLIOS ASPECT FROM WITHIN ITS ACADEMIC THE SCHOOL, CURATIONEMBRACED IMPORTANT AN AS ASSOCIATIONTHE ARCHITECTURAL ALWAYS HAS CURAT SCALE, WE LOOK ATSCALE, STUDENT PORTFOLIOS AN AS PLACES, AT AT URBAN SCALE. AN ASMALLER ACURATIONAS ICONIC AND OF EVENTS PEOPLE, ANALYSINGEACH THE TOPIC OF THE OLYMPICS ARCHITECTS AT SPACE APOP-UP LONDON, IN EAST AT ATALK THE SOUTHBANK AND BY EMERGING THIS SUMMER INCLUDED APANEL DISCUSSION ORGANISEDEVENTS BY THE MEMBERSHIP OFFICE EXHIBITION, TO ADDITION IN TRADITIONAL THE DIFFERENT WAYS OF CURATING ARCHITECTURE. PRESENT EACH ARCHITECTURE IN VENICE, BIENNALE TOSUMMER EXHIBITION THE 13TH INTERNATIONAL WORK AT PROJECTS REVIEW, THE ROYAL ACADEMY ATHELD AVARIETY OF GLOBAL LOCATIONS. WITH ARCHITECTURE BEING EXHIBITIONS OF YEAR, CURATION SEEMED ANATURAL FIT FOR THIS TIME FROM OURVERY OWN OF STUDENT EXHIBITION

17 NEWS FROM THE ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION AArchitecture 17 / Spring 2012 www.aaschool.ac.uk

©2012 All rights reserved Published by the Architectural Association 36 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3ES

Please send your news items for the next issue to [email protected]

Editorial Board Alex Lorente, Membership Brett Steele, AA School Director Zak Kyes, AA Art Director

Editorial Team Eleanor Dodman Manijeh Verghese Patricia Mato Mora Radu Macovei

Graphic Design Claire McManus

AA Photography Valerie Bennett and Sue Barr

Printed by Blackmore, England

Architectural Association (Inc) Registered Charity No 311083 Company limited by guarantee Registered in England No 171402 Registered office as above AARCHITECTURE FOCUSING ON RELEVANT SUBJECTS FOR ISSUE. EACH WITH THE REDESIGN OF ISSUE 16, LENDS ITSELF TO THEMATIC FORMAT LAUNCHED OF THE NEWSLETTER, FOCUS ON FOR 17? AARCHITECTURE THE NEW WHAT SUBJECT TO YEAR, EACH PLACE BETTER TO THE EVER-EVOLVING THAT EXHIBITIONS TAKE ORGANISATION STUDENT AND PORTFOLIOS ASPECT FROM WITHIN ITS ACADEMIC THE SCHOOL, CURATIONEMBRACED IMPORTANT AN AS ASSOCIATIONTHE ARCHITECTURAL ALWAYS HAS SCALE, WE LOOK ATSCALE, STUDENT PORTFOLIOS AN AS PLACES, AT AT URBAN SCALE. AN ASMALLER ACURATIONAS ICONIC AND OF EVENTS PEOPLE, ANALYSINGEACH THE TOPIC OF THE OLYMPICS ARCHITECTS AT SPACE APOP-UP LONDON, IN EAST AT ATALK THE SOUTHBANK AND BY EMERGING THIS SUMMER INCLUDED APANEL DISCUSSION ORGANISEDEVENTS BY THE MEMBERSHIP OFFICE EXHIBITION, TO ADDITION IN TRADITIONAL THE DIFFERENT WAYS OF CURATING ARCHITECTURE. PRESENT EACH ARCHITECTURE IN VENICE, BIENNALE TOSUMMER EXHIBITION THE 13TH INTERNATIONAL WORK AT PROJECTS REVIEW, THE ROYAL ACADEMY ATHELD AVARIETY OF GLOBAL LOCATIONS. WITH ARCHITECTURE BEING EXHIBITIONS OF YEAR, CURATION SEEMED ANATURAL FIT FOR THIS TIME FROM OURVERY OWN OF STUDENT EXHIBITION

17 NEWS FROM THE ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION EXAMPLE OF CURATING A BODY OF WORK AND THE NOTION OF CURATING PERSONALITIES FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF ASAP’S DANIELLE RAGO AS WELL AS EDUCATIONAL CURATION, AS SEEN THROUGH THE FIRST YEAR STUDIO. COVERING THE SCOPE OF LECTURES AND EXHIBITIONS THAT COMPRISE THE AA’S PUBLIC PROGRAMME, THIS ISSUE ALSO FOCUSES ON THE CURATION OF THE PAST, WITH A CATALOGUE OF THE AA ARCHIVE NOW AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC. ARCHIVIST ED BOTTOMS TRACES THE HISTORY OF THE TRADITION OF CURATING ARCHITECTURE AT THE AA FROM ITS EARLIER PREMISES ON TUFTON STREET. THIS ISSUE’S CENTREFOLD FEATURES A ‘CHANGING SPACE’ WITHIN THE SCHOOL, THE AA BOOKSHOP, NOW FOUND IN 32 BEDFORD SQUARE, THE IDEAL CHOICE AS A SPACE FOR THE CURATION AND CONSUMPTION OF KNOWLEDGE. HOST TO THE REDESIGN LAUNCH OF AARCHITECTURE, ITS NEW AND IMPROVED SPACE HOUSES A WEALTH OF BOOKS AND MAGAZINES RELATING TO THE TOPICS DISCUSSED WITHIN THIS ISSUE AND BEYOND!

EDITORS ELEANOR DODMAN PATRICIA MATO MORA MANIJEH VERGHESE RADU MACOVEI CONTENTS

2 ‘PERSONAL NARRATIVES OF COUNTER CULTURE’ 5 A COMPLEX EQUATION OF PARTS 8 FIRST YEAR A­­T THE AA 11 COLLECTING AND CUSTODIANSHIP WITHIN THE AA 14 PROJECTS REVIEW: AN EXHIBITION THAT CURATES ITSELF 16 STRANGE BLACK CUBES IN THE DESERT 18 A FACILITATOR OF DESIGN 19 DEFYING CATEGORISATION 20 COLLUSION OR EXPERIMENTATION? 22 POETRY? NOBODY UNDERSTOOD WE ACTUALLY MEANT IT

AA BOOKSHOP

25 RECOMMENDED READING 26 WRITING AS A FORM OF ARCHITECTURE 28 CHOREOGRAPHING THE INVISIBLE 30 A BOOK, A SYMPOSIUM, AN EXHIBITION 32 ‘CAPTURING A MOMENT IN TIME’ 34 MADRID GENEALOGIES 36 AA TALKS LONDON 2012 39 THE PARADIGM OF AN URBAN TRANSFORMATION 40 VENICE TAKEAWAY 43 NEW FROM AA PUBLICATIONS AND BEDFORD PRESS 44 COUNCIL NOTES

45 NEWS

NEXT ISSUE’S THEME SCHOOL ANNOUNCEMENT STUDENT ANNOUNCEMENT 2 ‘PERSONAL NARRATIVES OF COUNTER CULTURE’

Ja Kyung Kim (AA 4th Year) unravels her year-long exploration into the social customs and sensory experiences of the San Francisco hippies, that generated a narrative architecture to perpetuate their legacy.

Diploma 5 builds collective research as a public and cultural manifestation of social groups, using them to create context. In my view, modern hippies (Slab City, California; Rainbow Gathering, USA & Christiania, Denmark) are the most intense and genuine counterculture. They emerged as a critique of our society and made real attempts to build alternative life styles with their unique customs their histories have been recorded solely through oral transmis- sion so have been gradually disappearing. The self-constructed space of the project is generated by slowly accumulating cultural materials and personal narratives of counterculture in San Francisco, which is squatted by an alternative community. The collection of objects and imprint of stories are organised through a skeptical use of technology. Using social groups to generate context is an essential part of the process and a crucial moment during the design develop- ment. Each 4th year student is required to generate their own methods and thoughts within the Diploma unit in order to formulate their project. Through this process, using the contexts of social groups with deeper ideas produced an interesting story. However, this project needed a more considered structure, dealing with objects and how their history or knowledge could be imprinted on the structure through the social groups. During this project, the main challenge was the develop my own logic to deal with the social groups and thereby control my design strategies through the social groups. 3

The rule set for how social groups can be analysed and appropriated to form the design project. Overleaf: Examples of counterculture – Rainbow Gathering, Slab City and Christiania 4

In the first term, we researched social groups and chose a few to develop further. At first, we did not know how these collections were going to be used as an architectural inspiration. The next step was to understand how to create a design concept around these people. Furthermore, we had to design a building, so we needed to think about programme, scale, use and detail. These steps provided us with a new way of thinking about social groups architecturally. The narration of a story to accompany the project was extremely important to allow the audience to engage with the objects and their embedded qualities. The storytelling process was a strange and slow step in terms of quantity and quality. Hesitating to make decisions was the main difficulty in applying material to create the context of a building. Ideally the design needed to connect all the different constituent elements together to form a seamless story and in turn, a solid project. Finally, as a unit, we believe that space can be for social groups or personified as a human itself. It was eye-opening to experience these different ways of thinking about architecture. The cultural hippie’s public space and living archive are now not only a building but additionally became a historical and physical description of social groups. It is the story of hippies themselves. 5 A COMPLEX EQUATION OF PARTS

Curating a year-long body of work into an intermediate portfolio, Cliff Tan (AA Third Year) delineates an architecture that determines how it should be read.

The view of the project from Arbat Square in a 180-degree perspectival drawing.

Intermediate 7 acknowledge the rich appreciation. It is hence about how theories in existence, with the aim of architecture can be read. The objective exploiting them as a means to architectural is to address and respond to this issue formulation. The processes themselves, architecturally – the most susceptible of extracting and distilling information victim of this phenomenon. to become applied devices are hence vital In order to respond with the greatest to the eventual delivery of the project. In level of rationality and discipline, the Moscow, a city where appearance matters project can be seen as both a study of its more than substance, where image truly addressing issue and as a study in progress grants architecture a purpose, the project of that adopted systematic methodology. decided to adopt the ominously present, yet This chosen process was a derivative from evidently ignored discourse of architecture’s the typical nature of architectural design, legibility; the very curation and presentation of rationalising through two dimensions.

To see finalprojects the full and Cliff’s extent Ja of To website: Review please the Project’s visit http://pr2012.aaschool.ac.uk of architecture as an artefact for visual By adopting the logic behind the formulation 6 of such drawings and subverting their This alone presents a challenge as compositions and rules through such drawings are seldom endowed with such devices, hybrid and rationalised diagrams, responsibilities. Hence, the topic was meticulous enough to catalyse this project distilled into its main contributing factors, physically, are created. Inevitably, the such as facades and infrastructures, which drawings are central to the project in its would undergo the rationalising process development and outcome, and every line separately in the form of theoretical and extension that exists within them had junctures. By charting this with an almost to be meticulously plotted and rationalised. scientific approach, the objective was to optimise the outcome of the study.

With the site of the project sandwiched between two very different localities, it becomes a threshold which can be purposed for architectural formulation. 7

Being all about image and reading, all exposed surfaces of the building are unravelled to create a continuous plane of surfaces on which the design is carried out.

The earliest diagrams studied the that the process could have generated facades of Moscow and their legibility out of the very specific theme. Despite related to the effects they create. Layered being such a connected process, there planes representing each of the faces was surprisingly little flexibility in sculpting that make up the familiar image of Moscow the project during the later stages. It was were juxtaposed with each other, itemising impossible to alter the elevation drawing, the biased responses towards inner and which was essentially all the faces of outer sides, to express the vanity that this the pre-determined building unfolded into city enjoys. Using the context and devices a flat plane, and in turn, this drawing would generated from site studies, programmatic naturally restrict the final form in that way. functions are attached, adhering to a similar It is this rigidity that gives the project systematic approach, resulting in a rational the potential to be stable as an intellectual composition of parts, which concludes in entity and a tectonic edifice. Consequently, later diagrams where the project begins to the final form of the project presents take its final form. Every step was deter- itself not as an arbitrary design, but as mined by its adopted method and composi- a rationalised deduction of this complex tional parameters, therefore the outcome equation of parts. of this project could take form in many permutations, depending on interpretation and delivery. The current final image is therefore simply one of many possibilities 8 FIRST YEAR A­­T THE AA IS NOT A LIGHT VERSION OF ARCHITECTURE

Monia De Marchi (Head of First Year) discusses the experience of taking a first step into architecture with Radu Macovei

On the evening of Friday, 22 June, the AA opened its doors for a viewing of Projects Review 2012. On the second floor, a sequence of five very different rooms invited visitors to explore the work of the First Year Studio, led, since September 2011, by former Intermediate and Diploma tutor Monia De Marchi. The openness of the investigated themes, the varying media used, as well as the diversity of the projects arose questions with regards to how a student starts his/her education in architecture. With the goal of opening a debate about how one curates the education of architecture in First Year, we conducted an interview with Monia.

Radu Macovei: Monia, how was the entire work of the First Year Studio curated? Monia De Marchi: The work of the First Year Studio was organised thematically into rooms that reflect the fundamental topics investigated by both tutors and students over the course of the year. In the room called Re-…, we question the context of our investigations by reinterpreting different conditions that frame our architecture. The second room called Core looks, in a more abstract manner, at some of the elemental principles of architecture. Worlds and Real are two rooms that collect different speculations and visions: Worlds curates alternative scenarios, while Real presents projects that act directly within the conditions of London. The last room is enclosed by Stuff, a wall of postcards that expresses the way we worked during the year: even if the focus of the year was to act within the realm of architecture, we constantly manifested the necessity to look outside architecture.

What is the focus in the teaching and learning of architecture in First Year at the AA? The initial effort was not to see First Year as a light version of what architecture is, or an introduction to architecture. Instead the aim was to really understand that it is an initial exposure to architecture, and that it requires a balance between the understanding of some fundamental subjects of the discipline and their translation into far-reaching and speculative projects. A key point for First Year is really to see the portfolio as an investiga- tion that takes the forms of designing, writing, and arguing. Designing is the core, while writing and arguing are supportive, yet essential skills. 9

Worlds of First Year Exhibition, at the opening of AA Projects Review 2012. Photo Valerie Bennett

How does teaching in First Year differ from teaching in Intermediate and Diploma School? As opposed to the experience of teaching in other parts of the school, a first year tutor needs to be constantly aware of the fact that for the student this is a first exposure to the learning of architecture. In that sense, a first year tutor has the responsibility to teach how to question, look and search. Therefore, it is really important for a first year student to be exposed throughout the year to both individual and collective discussions, which question different approaches and positions. In the First Year Studio, the student is exposed to different investiga- tions which develop within a series of conversations. We teach the students that there is not a linear series of guidelines to be followed, nor should there be a complete open canvas for self-isolated investiga- tions without any audience and discussion. We try not to see architecture as a predictable discipline or as an isolated hobby.

How do teaching and learning within an open studio differ from teaching and learning within the autonomy of a unit? The First Year Studio is composed by tutors who have individual positions but still value and see the potential to question and work with other tutors. At times in the year, tutors develop and teach together, while at other times, they work directly with the students one on one. In a similar way, students sometimes work in groups and sometimes individually. Nevertheless, the series of briefs and explorations are framed by precise

The AA First Year Studio has its own website where you you where website has its own Studio The AA First Year and find can progressed see the year how 2011–12 in samples work: student of www.aafirstyear.com and common focuses. 10

Students sum up the year’s working methodology in an image: from drawings to manifestos to protests. Photo Sue Barr

What does a student know when finishing First Year at the AA? It is very important for a First Year student to understand and start learning how to translate an idea, a position or an intuition into a project. This translation requires a series of skills that range from forms of designing to writing and arguing. In the First Year Studio, a student is intensively exposed to architecture, such that when entering Intermediate School, he/ she should have a developed sense of curiosity and the knowledge and skills to master intuitions with more confidence. Students should not be too concerned with the making of a good project; instead they should constantly be open towards attempts that could be boring, ugly, messy, silly or questionable.

What is next? In the next academic year, we want to avoid the illustration of positions; instead we want to focus even more on ways of translating intuitions, positions and ideas into a project of architecture. Also we want to avoid an obsession for making a ‘coherent project’; instead we want to encourage more vulnerable explorations which are probably more frustrating, less polished and boring, yet unpredictable. We also want to focus more on the exploration of a brief rather than on final presentations, final portfolios and comprehensive projects.

With this summarizing answer we conclude the interview, but further encourage discourse on how the initial step into the education of architecture could be curated. ‘How do we start, how do we end education in architecture?’ and ‘Is architectural knowledge quantifiable?’ are reaction triggers. 11 COLLECTING AND CUSTODIANSHIP WITHIN THE AA

Edward Bottoms, the AA archivist, offers us a glimpse into the AA cabinet of curiosities – the archive.

Einar Forseth, Interior Scheme for Cinema ‘Arcadia’, Stockholm, 1927.

Earlier this year the AA Archives launched present, together with an initial sample its online catalogue, allowing access to of the Archives’ extensive collections of collections which until recently have been student drawings. Whilst student projects almost entirely inaccessible to historians will necessarily form the cataloguing priority of architectural education. Representing for the next few years, it is worth noting just the beginning of a long-term cata- that the Archives also hold a considerable loguing programme, this resource currently quantity of paintings, drawings and art details a small percentage of the AA’s objects acquired by the AA over the last holdings – primarily the core administrative 160 years, primarily through donations from

Visit the archive in its new and improved space in the the in space and improved its new in the archive Visit and see Square Bedford basement online 32 the new of catalogue at: http://archiveshub.ac.uk and association records from 1847 to the members and friends. The extent of this 12

Richard Phené Spiers, Design for a Triumphal Arch, c 1860.

vein of collecting cannot yet be fully traced, drawings and various eccentricities with only scraps of information regarding including an original Egyptian sarcophagus. provenance and formation filtering through Fulfilling no role within the curriculum and via a handful of inventories, minute books referred to by students as the ‘Chamber and other documentary sources. Nonethe- of Horrors’, the collections were largely less, even the imperfect, fragmentary neglected and left to gather dust. By 1919, picture currently available gives a fasci- with a Beaux Arts programme in full flow nating insight into changing attitudes to at the AA and a need to once more move collecting and custodianship within the AA. premises, the museum collections were, As early as the 1860s exemplary in the words of AA President Seth-Smith, architectural drawings and prints were ‘massacred and the corpses… interred being acquired by the AA for use in mutual in the South Kensington Museum.’ In all, instruction and as reference tools for the the AA disposed of c 4000 casts and more formal evening classes. This pattern original works to the Victoria and Albert of modest collecting was, however, rudely Museum, with 2000 being held in AA disturbed in 1902 when the AA suddenly storage only to be destroyed several years found itself as the surprised owner of an later. Amongst this latter quantity is thought entire museum of architectural ornament, to have been a superbly crafted, priceless consisting of over 6000 gothic casts, collection of early 18thC models of medieval carvings, models, architectural Commissioners’ churches. 13

Nevertheless, whilst the AA was towards collecting. The Library Committee, rejecting its role as custodian of gothic under the chairmanship of modernist and casts, it continued to collect drawings, Tecton member Godfrey Samuel, arranged retaining the Museum’s examples, and for a selection of drawings to be transferred acquiring material, including a stunning on permanent loan to the RIBA Drawings perspective of the new Palace of Collection. This was followed in 1963 Westminster, from the office of Sir Charles by a further batch of permanent loans, key Barry, and the winning entry for the items being, remarkably enough, sketches Law Courts competition (1866–67) by by the Pre-Raphaelites, Dante Gabriel G.E. Street. The 1920s saw a more formal Rossetti, and Edward Burne-Jones, and approach to collecting, with Hope Bagenal, two beautiful watercolours by John Ruskin. the acoustics engineer and Honorary There have been other losses. In 1969, Librarian, compiling a report on the an auction was held at Sotheby’s to raise AA’s Collection of Architectural Renderings money for new AA premises required for and apparently overseeing the Library’s the proposed merger with Imperial College. acquisition policy. Consequently, the AA Amongst the lots were a small number was considered by the Government Office of items from the AA’s own collections, of Works, as a suitable repository for including more sketches by Ruskin, entries for several major 19thC competitions, two watercolours of St Paul’s Cathedral including those for a new National Gallery by Thomas Malton (1798) and, bizarrely, and for the Admiralty and War Office – a 17thC Spanish carved alms chest. the architects involved including G.E. Street, Over the past two years, the Archives Charles Barry Junior, F.C. Penrose and have seen the re-housing of the AA’s W.A. Nesfield. Collecting was not restricted surviving art collection into appropriate to historical examples and contemporary storage in the new Archives room, prior works were also purchased, often indicative to cataloguing. Conservation work has also of AA tastes of the time, one curious been carried out on two Ruskin drawings example being the acquisition in 1929 and Barry’s Palace of Westminster of the original cartoons for the mosaic work perspective. The latter, now hanging, in its in the Gyllene Salon of Ragnar Ostburg’s original frame, alongside the massed racks Stockholm City Hall. Material was also lent of AA student portfolios, and the 500 cubic out by the AA in the 1920s and 30s, the feet of association records, posters and RIBA requesting drawings by Ruskin and ephemera which constitute what must be Pugin and the Royal Fine Art Commission the largest, as yet untapped, archive of borrowing works by Richard Norman Shaw architectural education in this country. for exhibition in Rome. The bulk of the drawings collections appears to have been housed in the library, The AA Archives have recently received where they were available for study, the important archives of the architect however many of the larger pieces were and planner, Professor Otto Köenigsberger. distributed around the AA’s buildings, the The collection, as yet to be catalogued, Palace of Westminster and Law Courts includes material which ranges across perspectives decorating the members’ Köenigsberger’s hugely influential private entrance in No. 36. Others were career, including work from his period relegated to storage – a 17thC Italian as the Chief Architect and Planner of ‘Madonna and Child’, on panel, being Mysore State, via his development of the recorded in a summary inventory of 1939 AA’s pioneering Department of Tropical as located in a cupboard in the AA Architecture, 1954–1972, and subsequently ‘Changing Room’! This inventory was the Development Planning Unit at subsequently utilised to record drawings University College London. The Archive sent out of London, for safekeeping, thus was kindly donated to the AA by, avoiding the war-time bomb blasts which Renate Köenigsberger, who sadly passed were to blow out the library windows. away in May of this year. A brief obituary With the post-war period came notice appears on p48. something of a sea change in attitudes 14 PROJECTS REVIEW: AN EXHIBITION THAT CURATES ITSELF

The Director of the AA, Brett Steele, explains how curating architectural projects is in itself a larger design project but one that can be set up to naturally evolve simply by creating adjacencies in how units are allocated to the different spaces of the school.

Projects Review tests the thesis that an exhibition can curate itself. It tests it Three units (Diploma 9, to breaking point. This is the extreme form Intermediate 9 and Intermediate 13) of what David Chipperfield has brought come together in the Front to this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale: Member’s Room to form a single cohesive exhibition space. to define a few things and leave everybody else to figure out the rest. The AA does that every year to the extreme form whereby every unit master or programme director working with his or her students develops a curatorial idea for that unit and tests it with a public audience as they come to view Projects Review. What’s interesting is that it puts back to the very groups who are running the year on their own terms, the question of how to display that work to a larger audience who has no clue as to the work generated by the school all year. It is an iteration of the same impulse that runs the school. It is not an alien way to try and deal with the show in some form other than how we deal with the school. To a certain degree that works and does not – very much like the school – you have successes, you have failures. year, foundation, 10 graduate programmes The most interesting thing discovered over plus the visiting school and other part-time the years is that the best Projects Review courses – it is around 40 mini exhibitions. exhibitions are the ones where that task is It becomes a mini-Biennale. consciously pursued and not just forgotten Allowing the exhibition to curate itself in the a rush to put some stuff up on the makes it hard to make suggestions that can walls. Units can actually discuss why they be adopted in the exhibition. The answer would organize the show in one way if they lies in how the different groups are placed have been working in another way all year. in relation to one another. Rather than If you walk around and look at the range of creating little ghettoes, where the structure work on offer: 26 undergraduate units, first of the exhibition mirrors the organisation 15 The AA Gallery brought into close proximity the different graduate programmes. The AA DRL showcases their research through the beginning of the year. It is always nice a landscape of models. to go back and look at the prospectus to see how the end of year AA Book Projects Review 2012 begins to answer the ques- tions set out at the beginning of the year or how it appropriates and challenges those briefs. When putting together an exhibition like Projects Review, the recognition that you are dealing with different kinds of audiences would make it a more interesting experience for students and staff. The work could be mute and indecipherable if there was an argument for why that was the ideal way to present the work. Right now, that is just an accidental consequence of not paying attention, and the show should really be about introducing and communicating ideas. With this in mind, it would be crazy not to try and display information as clearly as possible. Every year, the guide tries to provide that, but the guide usually becomes just excerpts from the prospectus when it needs to describe the actual installations of the prospectus: for example, all of themselves. Without descriptions or Diploma School is in one place while all captions, the exhibition runs the risk of of Intermediate School is in another, in the becoming about displaying quantity and last few years, we have tried to take coinci- finding results rather than about ideas dences or convergences in the agendas and larger arguments. and themes that the units are pursuing The transformation of the rooms in and create adjacencies accordingly. They Bedford Square into this annual exhibition can then choose to talk to one another begs the question – what does it mean

or ignore one another in how the exhibition when the spaces of a school actually is designed; nonetheless by being near become live spaces? In an architecture one another, juxtaposition plays a role. school this question becomes interesting Through framing and curating projects, because what they are really doing is units were presenting work in some other reprogramming space. Like an old Dip 10 way than commonly used for a jury or table project from Bernard Tschumi’s years, in presentation. It is a missed opportunity this instance, instead of putting a pole- when people see the exhibition as simply vaulter in a church, you are converting an extension of the already existing ways to a studio into an installation – a kind of present or talk about the work. It is different cross-programming. The ideal way to – presenting to an audience that actually design the project of curating this exhibition has no introduction or has no clue about would be to have everyone first make a what has been going on all year. Students curatorial statement as to what the space are presenting a very abbreviated or edited is for and why and to then allocate spaces version of their larger portfolios, so brutal based on these pitches – a good idea for curatorial decisions need to be made about how the exhibition will continue to evolve what gets included and what gets cut out. in the upcoming year! To treat it as the form of difference that it is, is the right response. AA Book: Projects Review 2012 (London, Another interesting facet of Projects 2012), 375pp, paperback. £25 is availble Review is the relationship between the to buy from the AA Bookshop and book and the exhibition: the book is online from AA Publications at

The Projects Review exhibition ran from 22 June – 13 July. July. from June – 13 22 ran exhibition The Projects Review please AA to refer the exhibition images of Life (aalog.net)For http://pr2012.aaschool.ac.uk at work the student view or designed in relation to the prospectus at www.aaschool.ac.uk/publications. 16 FANTASTICAL SCENARIOS OF STRANGE BLACK CUBES IN THE DESERT, POURS OF CONCRETE DOWN MOUNTAIN SIDES

Alexander Laing (AADipl ‘12), about the work of photographer Bas Princen, who lectured and exhibited his work at the AA earlier in April

Bas Princen’s exhibition and lecture in April Princen chose to photograph his was the latest in a series of contemporary Five Cities project (Istanbul, Beirut, Amman, architectural photographers who have Cairo and Dubai) as one fabricated reality, shown their work at the AA. Princen each existing for a fraction of a second in studied at the Design Academy Eindhoven, the fast-changing peripheries of contempo- before completing his postgraduate studies rary cities. These images could in fact in Architecture at the Berlage Institute be worlds of their own, each drawn from in Rotterdam. It was then that Princen a chapter of Calvino’s Invisible Cities. They began to formulate a style that captures are so alien from the reality of our cities, the uncanny realities hidden within our cities. that they implore you to imagine beyond Princen’s work focuses on the anony- the confounds of the frame. For Princen, mous post-industrial landscape that the story behind the image carries very surrounds our cities. Continuing on from little weight, but rather the image’s ability the Bechers, Princen’s images objectify the to tease you, from which you conjure up often pre-infrastructural fragments that lie fantastical scenarios of strange black seemingly abandoned, cast out from the cubes in the desert or pours of concrete city. The surreal flotsam and jetsam of cities down mountain sides. in flux are beautifully captured as potential During the lecture, it was refreshing future realities. to hear Princen talk so openly about his The intention behind his work was process. Before arriving on an assignment perfectly summed up by his tutor at the he curates a small book of found and Berlage, Bart Lootsma. Having been collected reference images, drawn from asked to comment on an image from his the internet. Arranged side by side, they latest series, Lootsma returned with the begin to talk amongst themselves, dictating Tarot card The Tower, meaning that one’s future images and hinting at the power understanding of reality will be altered within them. On arrival, Princen’s first day or enter another dimension. It is precisely of work is spent with local architects and that alternative reading of the landscape planners, looking for areas of expansion, that Princen attempts to achieve through natural borders or divisions of wealth. The photography, a reality only visible within fervent construction and destruction that

the space of the camera. takes place along the periphery of cities Association the Architectural lecture at Bas Princen’s Watch visiting:by www.aaschool.ac.uk/video/basprincen 17

Bas Princen’s exhibition in the AA Gallery in April 2012. Photo Sue Barr

often provides Princen with the necessary Bas Princen, Reservoir (Ostfildern, 2011), ambiguity for his work, ‘both [...] acts of 64pp, hardback, £25.99 and Refuge a certain forward thinking; you destruct (Amsterdam, 2009), 48pp, paperback, things because you want to build’. £16.50 are both available from Princen’s exhibition of carefully the AA Bookshop. constructed portals conveyed our idiosyn- cratic relationship to both cities and nature. Leading your eye on a journey through the image, he conjures the absurdity of our civilised world where architecture takes on the scale of landscapes and vast terrains are reduced to the scale of a room. It is through his lens that these quiet corners of our cities take on a magical, often surreal quality that says much about our future inhabitation of the built environment. 18 ‘A FACILITATOR OF DESIGN WITHIN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY’

Co-director and Curator of ASAP, Danielle Rago (AA HCT 2011) explains how the archive becomes a space for curating personalities.

A personality is defined as the embodiment The works themselves are relational of a collection of qualities. These qualities – both in reference to an individual artist relate to the overall characteristics of an oeuvre as well as to each other. The archive individual. When collecting works of art, is conceived of as a concentration of work as ASAP does, we must consider the in which architecture is produced through ‘personality’ of the individual artists and the accumulation and relation of things architects, as well as the works they in space whether they be physical, virtual represent. More so, the works themselves or textual. ASAP’s collection, hybrid in form take on the characteristic of personality and existing somewhere between the and ASAP’s collection itself – the artwork typical museological categories of ‘art’ – must be broken down and analysed in and ‘architecture’ is comprised of over 30 order to better understand the processes artists, including: Andrea Zittel, Andreas of artistic production and how it relates Angelidakis, An Te Liu, Bjarke Ingels, Caitlin to the overall mission of the archive, which Berrigan, Didier Faustino, Diller Scofidio + is to advocate ‘the value of architecture Renfro, Emanuel Licha, Greg Lynn, Jerszy

as part of a broader, social, political, Seymour, Karen Mirza and Brad Butler, technological and aesthetic discourse.’ Luca Pozzi, Markus Miessen, Nicholas Jaar, ASAP is a collection of contemporary Patricia Reed, Philippe Rahm, Post-Works, art and architecture dating from 2004 Raumlabor, Salottobuono, Sissel Tolaas, to the present day. Practitioners range from Teddy Cruz and Zak Kyes, among others, architects, artists, designers, performers, and upwards of 100 works of art to date. filmmakers, writers, engineers, scientists, Like the website (www.a--s--a--p.com) and choreographers whose works address where you can rearrange art via shuffle the spatial environment in a myriad of ways. – the work in the collection, as well as the As curators, we work with protagonists individual artists, produce new relationships, to collect varied types of work, across their a new dialogue, and inherently a new practice comprised of spatial and artistic meaning. It is here that ASAP functions as objects, virtual media, texts and ephemera. more than a mere warehouse for art- Unlike traditional ways of collecting, in objects, but rather as a progenitor of works which the seminal work is of utmost value, and a facilitator of design within the ASAP’s interest is in the process or twenty-first century. modalities of working such as pieces that are informative to the overall trajectory of a particular artist’s career or practice. See the full list of personalities and work curated curated See personalities and work theof full list www.a--s--a--p.com ASAP website by on their 19 DEFYING CATEGORISATION

George A Fergusson, AA 1st Year student, draws out what it was like to attend Brian Eno’s lecture entitled ‘What is art actually for?’ in February 2012.

Photo Valerie Bennett

creation from scratch. A relevant example would be that of the genre of ‘ambient’ music, which he pioneered with the intent of morphing the music into something that may alter one’s perception of their surroundings. As Eno has continued to produce new innovations, his relevance to architecture and art will last and grow. The lecture began with a statement of how the art world is today and how its development has not evolved to the relativistic state of most other value systems, and that we value dogs over Frenchmen in art. He also spoke of what his interpretation of art is and why we create it. Evolutionary theory played strongly throughout his explanations, as did other concerns to do with art’s relationship Brian Eno recently spoke as part of the to time and context. I particularly enjoyed first-year lecture series. He is a person his 6-dimensional diagram of antonymous who defies categorisation. His music career hairstyles, which showed their context began with Roxy Music after a chance within space and time. An ingenious meeting with the saxophonist, and since method of representing meaning and how then it has spread over many decades, it can be entirely dependent on the genres and art mediums. His career defies contextualisation of a style or piece of art. the word-limit of this article, none-the-less It is particularly interesting to note that, even if a picture can say a thousand words, throughout the lecture and during the Q&A I hope I will be forgiven for not including the afterward, he contended that right now, a image which has been described as most justification for art was necessary when apt for the body of his work. creative industries are being neglected by It being a lunch-time lecture did nothing the government, despite the very tangible, to assuage my anticipation of this presenta- yet poorly understood economic and tion. It is very difficult not to admire his societal benefits of creative enterprise. experimental ethos, which has produced He argued how an artist’s purpose is to such a unique variety of work. It may come suggest new worlds that can upset our as a surprise to hear that by his own ‘complacencies’, as half of a surrender- description he is a ‘non-musician’, despite control dialectic with science. This can be such success in the music industry. This is thought of like that of the ‘non-musician’ because he intends to be the complement role, where the artist is complementary and of a musician, rather than simply not be a yet entirely distinct to the more controlled musician. His work is more to do with the scientific role.

To watch Brian Eno’s lecture entitled ‘What is art ‘What for?’ lecture entitled actually Eno’s Brian watch To www.aaschool.ac.uk/video/brianeno to go manipulation of music rather than its 20 COLLUSION OR EXPERIMENTATION?

Scrap Marshall (AADipl ‘12) reviews the exhibition held at the AA in April 2012, Zak Kyes – Working With...

Exhibition view, Architectural Association, 2012. Photo Brotherton Lock

‘Collaboration’ is a word that is as troubling problems, the reality of the situation is as it is ubiquitous. As popular, overused that, more often than not, collaboration and misused as other words in architec- merely suggests individuals or groups ture’s linguistic canon: Public, Ecological, engaging in a shared work rather than Sustainable, Multi-disciplinary, and ‘to using their own skills to tackle their collaborate’ seemingly makes work own interests, where each vested interest more necessary, even vital. Yet while ‘to clashes head long into each other, collaborate’ suggests a pooling of ideas further into the ‘creative process’. Here and resources, the joining of minds and collaboration means little more than skills to find new ways to solve certain cooperating, at best. 21

In this context, an exhibition at the publishing house, the Bedford Press is AA in April suggested otherwise. Happily, vitally independent and yet intrinsically the exhibition is not of an architect or two joined to the AA, and it has also been willing to ‘cooperate’, but a look at the enthusiastically exploited by students from work of graphic designer Zak Kyes and a within the AA. These new, often accidental, reevaluation of the many working relation- collaborations wind their way through the ships he has formed with various clients, slides of Bottoms’ historical retrospective. academics, friends, students, publishers Further working relationships with and institutions. other institutions are exposed with extracts The exhibition ‘Zak Kyes – Working of past work, printed by and on the Bedford With...’ was first staged at the Museum Press while seconded at the ICA in London, of Contemporary Art Leipzig in early 2012 displayed alongside copies of publications, before arriving at the AA in April. It published by the press, and authored continues at the Graham Foundation in by contributors from a variety of academic Chicago until September. Having won and non-academic institutions from across the INFORM Award in 2010, an award that the world. is given to a graphic designer working in While the exhibition and the book, the arena of contemporary art, Zak Kyes which adds a further section of reflective in both the exhibition and book that texts, speak volumes not just of the accompanies and is embedded in the processes and techniques of collaborating, exhibition itself, takes the premise of but also the success and seeming enjoy- this award and aims to test the idea of ment of working with others, it is the an individual working in his own practice physical exhibition structure, designed while engaging with other disciplines. by Jesko Fezer, that both intrigues and The exhibition itself takes the form unwittingly suggests a certain tolerance of a series of fragmented commissions, to an idea of collaborating. or more precisely, a series of tests in a Fezer’s wooden and steel structure, multitude of media, across various scales, whose purpose is to give a functional each instigated by Zak and his individual framework for the various pieces of printed collaborators. Working with architects material, projections et al to be displayed Nikolaus Hirsch and Michel Muller an upon, obeys a set of strict rules that archive, however uncomfortable, becomes includes: ‘No pragmatic serviced-oriented inhabitable, the audio guide by Shumon display design’, ‘No shelves, tables or chairs’ Basar and Charles Arsène-Henry becomes and ‘unfortunately no books either’. Here distorted and forms a strange new narrative the very output of one’s individual practice, and overview of both the exhibition and in the form of beautifully crafted books the notion of collaborating itself. Beautiful becoming unreadable and unusable behind posters by the artist Joseph Grigely the protective boxes designed by another, is publicise and at the same time document seemingly the perfect form of collaboration. the room of work while designer Wayne But is it in the form of an ironic act of Daly’s publishing dummies temptingly betrayal, of collusion and opposition? Or is suggest and give a physical, purchasable it two practices with a similar goal, open to form to the book ‘Zak Kyes Working With...’ experimentation? that will be published shortly. Zak’s continued and valued relationship Zak Kyes Working With... (New York, 2012), to the AA (Zak has been Art Director at 266pp, paperback, £21, is available from the AA since 2006 and was instrumental the AA Bookshop. in AArchitecture’s formation) is both documented and pushed forward. A lecture by Edward Bottoms, the AA’s archivist, shows the trajectory of student-initiated publishing at the AA from a distant past to a more recent revival intrinsically linked to Zak and Wayne Daly’s formation of

Learn more about Zak Kyes’ work by visiting his website: his visiting by work Learn Zak about Kyes’ more @zakkyes on Twitter: him following or www.zakgroup.co.uk the Bedford Press. A physical press and 22 POETRY? NOBODY UNDERSTOOD WE ACTUALLY MEANT IT

Architects and curators Ana Araujo and Catalina Mejia in conversation with Patricia Mato-Mora, Student Editor

Ana Araujo and Catalina Mejia were co-curators of the exhibition Lina & Gio: The Last Humanists, which was shown at the Architectural Association from February – March 2012. Ana is a tutor in AA Intermediate Unit 2 alongside Takero Shimazaki, and holds a PhD in Architectural Design at the Bartlett. She is also founder of the Travesía Institute. Catalina is a Colombian architect who holds an MA in Architectural History at the Bartlett and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Newcastle.

Patricia Mato-Mora: One finds a series of characteristics in architectural exhibitions, also present in Lina & Gio, which perhaps makes them distinct to other disciplines’ exhibitions. Is an architectural exhibition one where documentation of work is exhibited? And also, what was the link between the architectural exhibition in the AA Gallery and the photographic exhibition in the Front Members’ Room [photographs by Íñigo Bujedo Aguirre]? Ana Araujo: In painting or sculpture exhibitions, yes, one is expecting to see ‘the real thing’. Not in architectural exhibitions, where the building is never exhibited. In fact, one is possibly inside another building. So yes, architectural exhibitions operate very much in the realm of documentation. Curating architecture might have to do with compensating for an absence. What are all the possible ways in which this missing element can be addressed? Catalina Mejia: Íñigo’s photographs were aimed at that. Needless to say, they were filtered by his eye and the lens of his camera. Ana Araujo: However, the exhibition was not about Lina and Gio’s architecture, but about them. As a matter of fact, they are not around. Perhaps this is the most problematic issue. We were trying to compensate for the absence of the character, rather than of the building. We wanted to bring back their spirit, their attitude and their commitment. Their openness to emotion and poetry.

What do you think the exhibition’s curatorial task brings to the perception of their personalities that had not been considered before? AA: It was the first time that they were exhibited together. CM: When bringing them together, one of our purposes was to think about their work in relation to each other, which they might not have done when they were alive. 23

How much did you feel your interests were permeating in the exhibition, and what do you think that brought to Lina and Gio’s work that would not have been shown otherwise? CM: The exhibition was what you might describe as ‘gendered’. This was one of the criticisms that we received: it was displayed and perceived as a feminist manifesto. So yes, we were almost exhibiting ourselves, as well. AA: We were exercising our critical judgement, that’s how I would put it. I’m not going to deny that there was a sense of self-indulgence in the way we addressed it. How much is this acceptable, desirable, useful, productive? I don’t have an answer for this. One of the things that speaks in our favour is that this idea of an intimate approach to artifacts was what both Lina Bo Bardi and Gio Ponti advocated. It was less acceptable at their time to do so, as the feminist movement’s influence on architecture was very incipient. When talking to Lina Bo Bardi’s collaborators, they told us that, at the time, they effectively meant ‘all that talk about architectural poetry’, but they felt they weren’t being taken seriously. They were not the first to be concerned about poetry in architecture, but there was a sense that the language could not keep up with the ideas. We took advantage of the fact that, nowadays, this has been overcome.

Lina & Gio, exhibited in the AA Gallery during February and March 2012. Photo Sue Barr The Lina and PM Bardi Institute is dedicated to diffusion to is dedicated The Institute Lina and PM Bardi English and both in information Culture, more Brazilian of Portuguese can be accessed at: www.institutobardi.com.br 24

In fact, something recurrent in Lina’s work is a sensibility for something that, in my opinion, does not know about curating, does not care about being curated, organised, catalogued, compiled, distilled. Here I am talking of course about the Brazilian vernacular arts and crafts that so fascinated her. AA: It is an argument about ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture. For Lina, there was not much difference between exhibiting the Brazilian vernacular and going to a museum in Rome and seeing classical objects on display: this time, what the visitor saw was something which was playful, ironic, ugly. But who said the classical artifacts were not playful, ironic and ugly? Originally they had also had qualities of the vernacular. Perhaps the innocence of these classical objects can be released by looking at them through Lina Bo Bardi’s eyes. For that matter, why should the vernacular objects care about being exhibited? You started saying: ‘Hang on, these pieces... they don’t care!’ And why should they? However, it is important to acknowledge that the gesture has a value. It is a deed for an artisan working in a very remote area in Brazil to have his or her craftwork displayed in the main museum in São Paulo. CM: It is also true the other way around: as audience, seeing such objects in a museum confers them a respectability that they would not have had otherwise.

So, do you think that Lina’s work itself can, in the twenty-first century, be thought of as untamed, as work which does not care about the notion of being curated? AA: I think that most of her work answers your question affirmatively: in particular, the Chame Chame House [in Salvador da Bahia], the Valeria Cirelli House [in São Paulo] and the Casa do Benin [in Salvador da Bahia].

Perhaps the fact that two of them are in Salvador is significant... AA: Yes and no. Bear in mind Salvador da Bahia carries a colonial burden. The most important building in that respect is the church in Uberlândia [Igreja do Spirito Santo do Cerrado – Spirito Santo do Cerrado Church]. It is where Lina worked most closely with the community. That aligns it more with the nature of vernacular artifacts. Having said this, I’m still quite convinced that Lina’s main intention was that all her buildings were, primarily themselves, just as the vernacular objects we were discussing before.

So how would you say the work had to be curated in Lina & Gio for it to convey a message in the twenty-first century? AA: The exhibition was, primarily, of Lina, not to undervalue the impor- tance of Gio Ponti’s contribution. The argument it tried to bring forward was that the present-day perception of Lina Bo Bardi as an ‘exotic’ architect who worked in the developing world, as an architect who had an approach which might have been fantastic and inspiring but not applicable to the Western world or the present times, had to be challenged and done away with.

2G Book Lina Bo Bardi – Built Work (Barcelona, 2012), 255pp, paperback, £53 and Architecture Words 12: Stones against Diamonds (London, 2012), 160pp, paperback, £15 are both available from the AA Bookshop. AA BOOKSHOP

Having occupied four different spaces between July 2011 and April 2012, the last year has seen the AA Bookshop seemingly following the trend of the pop-up shop. This has been quite a mission with a basic stock of 7,800 books. The challenge was to keep the bookshop running and its stock clearly organised, while designing and realising a series of shop fit-outs of varying scales within a budget requiring the maximum re-use of temporary furniture. The design and installation of furniture, lighting, flooring and removal of a wall were carried out around the running of the shop with the ultimate aim of uniting two ground floor rooms at number 32 into one bookshop space. Working closely with Buro 4 and Nex, who were employed by the school to assist with the first phase of implementing the AA masterplan, and also with the tireless AA maintenance team, the new AA bookshop opened on schedule in the spring term. The founding of the AA Bookshop began in the basement of 36 Bedford Square in October 2008. Surrounded by the dusty, empty shelves of the legendary and privately owned Triangle bookshop which had closed down half a year earlier, Bookshop Manager Charlotte Newman began the work of building up a new bookshop from scratch. It was a tight schedule to have everything up and running for the start of term in January 2009 but worth every effort as the need for the specialist shop became quickly clear from the reactions and enthusiasm of the customers. The expansion into the new room at number 32 has allowed us to develop and build on the stock range which was offered in the smaller shop. The dense display of books in bespoke refrained shelving and on long tables which draw you into the space, references the intimacy of the basement beginnings, while also respecting the features and details of the grand Georgian room and magnificent ceiling where we are now housed. The shop design is adaptable so events can now neatly be held within the space of which the shop has already hosted five successful book launches since opening in April (as well as the launch of AArchitecture 16). Vitrine tables showing rare and out of print books can also be used for exhibiting small, focused displays of publications. The AA Bookshop opened in April 2012 for everyone to use and enjoy, with a dedicated, team of staff and a comprehensive selection of internationally sourced titles.

Photo Valerie Bennett The AA Bookshop can be found on the Floor Ground The Square. Bedford hours opening are: 32 of 11.00–17.00 and Saturday 10.00–18.30 Friday to Monday 25 RECOMMENDED READING

Books available from the AA Bookshop on curating architecture

Curating Architecture and the City Log 20 – Fall 2010. Edited by Sara Chaplin, Alexandra Stara Curating Architecture London 2009, 17.4 x 24.6cm, New York 2010, 16 x 23cm, b&w illustrations, 272pp. Paperback. b&w illustrations, 168pp. Paperback. Addressing the collection, representation Log 20, published on the occasion of the

and the exhibition of architecture and 12th Venice Architecture Biennale 2010, the built environment, this book explores considers curating architecture both within current practices, historical precedents, its contemporary guises and historical theoretical issues and future possibilities lineage. Practitioners from New York to arising from the meeting of a curatorial Paris, Moscow to Tokyo propose curating ‘subject’ and an architectural ‘object’. as advocacy, as atmosphere, and as Striking a balance between theoretical architecture itself, assembling in this investigations and case studies, the special thematic issue what is arguably chapters cover a broad methodological the first compendium of contemporary as well as thematic range. Examining the practices on this emerging discourse. influential role of architectural exhibitions, Issue 20 includes: Barry Bergdoll, Eve Blau, the contributors also look at curatorship Jean-Louis Cohen, Cynthia Davidson, as an emerging attitude towards the Marco De Michelis, Tina Di Carlo, Manfredo investigation and interpretation of the di Robilant, Ole W. Fischer, Kurt W. Forster, city. International in scope, this collection Jeffrey Kipnis, Sylvia Lavin, Paula Lee, investigates curation, architecture and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Kayoko Ota, Andrea the city across the world, opening up new Phillips, Alex Schweder, Felicity D. Scott, possibilities for exploring the urban fabric. Robert A.M. Stern, Léa-Catherine Szacka, Henry Urbach, Philip Ursprung, Eyal

Order these titles online at aabookshop.net where where aabookshop.net these at Order online titles books, new a selection of special offers and some backlist titles is available. Weizman & Tina Di Carlo, Mirko Zardini 26 WRITING AS A FORM OF ARCHITECTURE

The article gives an overview of the prize-winning History and Theory essays which can be found on the AA’s website.

Next to the yearly Dennis Sharp Award Second Year Writing Prize for Excellence in Architectural Writing, Frederique Paraskevas the History and Theory Department at the Tahrir Square and Haussmann’s Paris: AA has decided this year to award essays Physical Manifestations of Political by students from each undergraduate year. Doctrines In May the juries convened to listen to the We are at a stage in history where modern presentations of the nominated writers revolution has resurfaced in an outbreak and to engage in conversation about the at a scale that was hard to predict. Starting selected essay topics and focuses of the in Tunisia, and sweeping across the Middle History and Theory teaching. Both the East like wildfire, the effect of such events Dennis Sharp Award and the Writing Prizes has yet to be digested let alone understood. aim to encourage writing in the field of The spaces that allow for such revolutions architecture and to promote writing as to be realized is what this essay shall a form of architecture in itself. address. Just as the ideas of modern revolution date back to Aristotle, the First Year Writing Prize architecture that was occupied, changed Radu Macovei and indeed helped form uprisings shall From Alberti to Koolhaas: be analysed in relation to Cairo, and Tahrir Tracing an Urban Conception Square, otherwise known as ‘Liberation Alois Riegl’s conception of art as a means Square’. The parallel shall be drawn of expressing how man wants to see the between the French revolution in 1848, world shaped explains Alberti’s map of and Haussmann’s vision for Paris, and Rome: the surveyor expects and perceives the architecture that framed the Egyptian Rome to be a pure collection of monuments Revolution. This essay shall also analyse on a void surface, the projection of a ‘city of the urban planning and organisation of negatives and positives’. Another depiction Cairo and Paris in relation to governmental of such a city is Rem Koolhaas’ twenty- structure and techniques of security that first-century collage of the world’s sky- are projected into the city. scrapers aggregated in the United Arab Emirates’ desert. Koolhaas’ image functions Third Year Writing Prize through the insertion of an absolute urban Ling Xiu Chong in the context of an absolute desert. The Here lies architecture, as the extension city depicted by Koolhaas is thus purely of the self into a world. It begins as a desire, composed of monuments alone with voids an innocent design to pursue and realise in-between. If Alberti’s map is the percep- – it is an instrument, servant to man and tion of a city as a collection of landmarks on sufferer of nature. Hence, through architec- a void surface and if Koolhaas’ collage is a ture, man may be reconciled to reality critique of contemporary cities of icons built – man rarely confronts the world indepen- in the desert, then has the human urban dent of his devices, because he would be perception of a city been transformed into otherwise lost, or left to face dangerous the city itself? truths out there that could destroy the self

27

AA Writing Awards and the Dennis nostalgic. However, when we recognise that Sharp Award for Excellence in Architectural Writing a place one considers to be their home is Photo Valerie Bennett not a constant constraint, but an indefinite condition that can be reshaped over time, we can begin to see how nostalgia starts to contaminate, becoming a prerequisite. The birth of the nostalgic ailment was linked to war. In the twentieth century, with its world wars and catastrophes, outbursts of nostalgia often occurred following such disasters.5 In this essay I will be moving closer in time still, to examine how modern age nostalgia manifests itself on the twenty-first century frontline. In particular, how aspects of home are remade on enemy soil and the implications that this phenom- enon leads to.

Honourable Mention Henry Thorold Space Odysseys: From the Leibniz Clarke Correspondence to 2001 Between the years of 1715–1716, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Samuel Clarke conducted a famous and influential exchange of letters known as the Leibniz Clarke correspondence. The principle issue of debate was the fundamental nature of space: Leibniz asserting it to be purely as it is known unto itself, just as the body relative whilst Clarke adhered to an will perish in the desert. absolute, Newtonian picture. Although The history of man is much more a the correspondence was between Leibniz history of cultivation and construction that and Clarke, for the purposes of this essay has found its end in urbanity, architecture I will regard Clarke as Newton’s mouth- proliferated to the point of behaving as piece and a mediator between the two a fabric as large as a terrain. great men. In what follows ‘the debate’ If architecture is to retain its primary will therefore refer to the underlying clash purpose as the expression of man’s needs, of ideals between Leibniz and Newton it must preserve him from the threats of rather than Leibniz and Clarke. the world without – it must stay closer to This essay will take Leibniz and Newton his skin and thoughts. Here, between through Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 master- worlds, one realises that architecture piece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, transporting should not attempt to isolate him from his them into Kubrick’s space to imagine how surroundings but rather unite him with it. a trip on one of the film’s spacecraft might have influenced the debate. Dennis Sharp Award Philip Turner At War with Nostalgia, Truth is the First Casualty Nostalgia, however, is related more closely to time. Returning to the past is a physical impossibility, it is something that can only be achieved through memory – so whilst Odysseus longs for home it is Proust who

The prize-winning essays are accessible by the public and and the public by essaysThe accessible prize-winning are www.aaschool.ac.uk/awards2012 at online available is In Search of Lost Time and is the true 28 CHOREOGRAPHING THE INVISIBLE

Oliviu Lugojan-Ghenciu (AADipl 2011) answers our questions about his award-winning drawing.

GravityONE: A Choreography for Militarised Airspace 29

Radu Macovei: Oliviu, how did the drawing come to exist in the first place? Oliviu Lugojan-Ghenciu: I was working on an animation in order to represent the performative nature of my project. The drawing was a way of concluding the animation, mainly as an editorial necessity regarding the AA’s end of the year publication and my final tables. It is important to mention that the drawing was part of a series of eight drawings, all meant to illustrate a chapter from the animation. I made the drawings with the aim of concluding the animation through a sequence of still images. Like a short, graphically enriched storyboard.

Why was this drawing in particular selected? It is very interesting how the drawing ended up getting all the credits for the Pozner Prize. The Pozner Award was referring to the animation, but due to the impossible character of publishing an animation, especially when needing to deal with paper, the drawing became the promoted element. It is as if the animation generated the drawing which then in turn promoted the animation. I find this a very interesting example of how two mediums of representation could ‘work in collaboration’ to support one another.

What makes a drawing ‘good’ in your opinion? A ‘good drawing’ is an illustrative element which is not just a drawing, but something that takes you beyond its graphical representation. When making a drawing, one uses a graphic language to express a narrative. The more the drawing catches and leads one’s eye into a graphic journey and one’s mind into a deep imaginative thought process, the better the drawing serves its purpose.

How and where was the drawing exhibited? The drawing spread over a very wide editorial landscape. One cannot really keep track of how a drawing travels, especially through virtual online platforms. But most certainly, the greatest satisfaction comes when seeing the drawing printed on paper. When a drawing is printed, it fulfils the reason why it has been produced in the first place.

What mediums did you use to produce the piece? When developing a project I tend to work through analog processes in a digital environment. This might be so because of my initial fine art training, which inspired me to use Illustrator, Cinema4D, Maya, Photoshop, Vue, AfterEffects, RealFlow (you name it) as a pencil, a screwdriver, a sponge, a scalpel, clay, paint, a cable, etc. For me it’s all about grabbing all I can from whatever software I can take it from. Even as a screen-shot. One just needs to follow the image in one’s head instead of thinking about what tools one needs to get to the image. This visualisation and produc- tion process is an instinctual method of expression, much like speaking. If you want to find out more information about how the drawing came into being follow the link below to a publication I conceived for the Pozner Prize ceremony and which is dedicated to the Nicholas Pozner Foundation and to the AA. The publication visually explains the process of production and bridges the drawing and the animation. If you wish to have a look into the visual and conceptual theprocesses visual a look into have to wish you If please and drawing animation the award-winning to led Oliviu that follow the link: www.blurb.co.uk/bookstore/detail/2984602 30 A BOOK, A SYMPOSIUM, AN EXHIBITION – DIFFERENT FORMS OF CURATING ARCHITECTURE

Yael Reisner discusses the different forms curation can take within architecture, be it a symposium, a book or an exhibition.

Since diversity in the architectural world The title of my book written with of practice and thought is increasing, Fleur Watson, Architecture and Beauty: architects find themselves ever more Conversations With Architects About divided into camps of affinity, both locally A Troubled Relationship, reflects a decision and globally. In turn, the role of the curator to critique the state of the profession via – to sum up a position and draw attention a curatorial theme. In addition to this, there to both new and past activity – is growing. was the selection of 16 highly influential Exhibitions are often supported by an architects1 to be interviewed, who repre- augmenting text, often resulting in cata- sented a wide range of opinions as a result logues that become highly significant to the of their differences in both age and exhibition itself – not only as a report on the personal character. exhibits, but as a study by researchers who The book triggered six symposiums, have expertise in the work. This becomes each with a different selection from the even more paramount with exhibitions in sixteen interviewees, enhancing the focus museums of a certain size, such as the of the debate. Naturally, a different set Pompidou Centre, MoMA and the V&A. of arguments arose for each different Nowadays, due to visual activity combination of architects. A symposium becoming increasingly intellectualised, can then perhaps be seen as curatorial it is quite common for a curatorial work space that is larger and far more complex to be realised not only as an exhibition, than the traditional exhibition, but lacking but also as a book, or even more frequently the tangible presence of the object or its as a debate, orchestrated in the form of a visual description. symposium, where each exhibit might only Lately, I curated an exhibition for the be projected on the wall for a brief moment. TESTBED1 gallery, Battersea, called Personally, curating architecture Turning the Tables2, which showed fourteen becomes the tempting task of making new tables designed by architects – all a comment in public about architecture. original prototypes. As with the book, the As an architect who takes delight in design, exhibition became a cultural rain-check, the appearance of the curated work – in and I was intrigued to check, among whichever form it takes – is also driven architects, what kind of tables might be by an ambition to create visual pleasure, produced and what kind of preoccupation with the aim of both intriguing and revealing their design might expose, as design often information to the visitor, the beholder, not only reflects on time and place, but also or the reader. on the collective memory of the community 31

we live in; the real and the virtual, the Curation itself could be seen as going local and the global. through its own, similar transformation. The open brief for the exhibition As curating the arts becomes more and consisted of just one question: ‘Will you more of a profession, studied as Master’s have a table to show for an exhibition in courses and PhDs, there is a growing seven weeks time?’ All the tables, but one, demand for creativity in a field, which is no were designed by architects who focus on longer limited to a reflective report of the architecture, and who are involved with the artists’ work. Curating architecture is a new long process of production, from gener- territory that is both in demand and open ating the design to the end product. to interpretation. Thanks to rapid prototyping machines, architects have once again become makers. Even though the manufacturing is often 1 Frank Gehry, Zvi Hecker, Peter dependent on the machine, the artistic Cook, Johani Pallasmaa, Lebbeus quality remains and is controlled through Woods, Gaetano Pesce, Wolf Prix, drawing skills. A revolutionary shift turning Thom Mayne, Eric Moss, Will Alsop, architects from the visionaries who often Zaha Hadid, Odile Decq, Mark lead design processes through the craft Goulthorpe, Sulan Kolatan & Bill of others into artistic makers themselves. McDonald, Greg Lynn and Hernan Diaz Alonso. 2 The selected exhibitors were Will Alsop, Jason Bruges Studio, Partial view of Turning the Tables Nat Chard, Cinimod, Peter Cook in the gallery TESTBED1. and Yael Reisnr, Bernd Felsinger, Tables designed by the architects: Pablo Gill and Jaime Bartolome, in the right front – by Helen and Barnaby Gunning, Helen and Hard, Hard, right back – by Jason Bruges Studio, middle – by sixteen Sandra Knoebl and Rudolf Knoebl, makers, left – by Yael Reisner marcosandmarjan, Naja-deOstos, and Peter Cook.Posters at the sixteen* (makers) and Heng Zhi. back by Nat Chard.

To see more of Yael Reisner’s work please visit please visit work Reisner’s Yael see of more To www.yaelreisner.com 32 ‘CAPTURING A MOMENT IN TIME’

Chris Wilkinson discusses with Eleanor Dodman, student editor, the 244th annual Royal Academy Summer Show, and his involvement in curating the architecture room.

Chris Wilkinson’s installation from landscape to portrait positioned in the centre of the RA’s Annenberg Courtyard at Burlington House

Eleanor Dodman: This year the architecture room has started to bleed its way into the galleries adjacent to it, a conscious decision you and Eva Jiricna RA made when curating the exhibition. What made you blur the boundaries of what has always been such a self contained space? Chris Wilkinson: There are two reasons really, one is that I am very interested in fine art and I paint, but more, so that you have a run of galleries, two painting galleries followed by the architecture gallery and then two sculpture galleries. It seemed to me that there was a beautiful symmetry about that. But it worked much better if the architecture spread out to the adjoining galleries and in return we could take some of the art works into the architecture room. Tess Jaray, who is in charge of the hanging, and I talked very early on about this and she was interested in how we would integrate the architecture, how that would work. 33

We brought in this Rana Begum folded-metal sculpture, entitled NO.283, which Tess identified as being a good piece. It really does work well on the wall because it sits right on the axis with the octagon room, as you come in. There is quite a nice relationship, but more a post-rationalisa- tion, with my piece in the courtyard, which is on the same axis. You have a piece of architecture where you expect to see a sculpture and a sculpture where you expect to see a piece of architecture.

So when it came to selecting the pieces it seems you did some trading. With such a vast amount of work submitted it must be quite difficult to begin the process. There is a committee and the rooms are delegated to the different people, but obviously the architecture room is slightly different and quite onerous, as there is a lot to hang in a small space. We had a discussion at the beginning and generally agreed on the approach. Eva Jiricna RA, whom I curated the room with, was keen on getting on with it in the site. We moved things around to get things right. It did take a while. As part of blurring the boundaries I wanted the architecture room to feel the same as the other rooms, with the models in the middle and the wall hung with artworks. So we put all the models on this plinth arrangement, which gave us the walls free. We decided we could go quite high with the stronger pieces at the top, and the finer pieces at the bottom. We could have just put a cut off, but we wanted to get as much work in as we could. We could have been very selective, you can have very few pieces and hang them beautifully, but Eva and I both felt that the Summer Show is not about that, it is about capturing a moment in time. It’s about exhibiting works by students and young architects next to the big names. We felt the more we could show the better, in a way. We put Peter Cook on the top, because of the historic reference, he has probably taught us all. You definitely have to balance the personalities of the work. I was also very aware of the almost Beaux-Art classicism of the room, it’s not like an art gallery. It’s more like a salon. It’s a very different space but you can make it work, more like a junk shop than an art gallery really. Much like an end of year show, there is a lot of stuff. I think it is valid, but I would not expect all exhibitions to be like that.

This year, you were also commissioned to produce a piece for the main courtyard. The installation is very site-specific and a very interesting use of the courtyard, the piece really integrates itself well. It is very site-specific and that is unusual because normally they ask a sculptor to put a piece that they have worked on before, but I made this piece especially for the Royal Academy. Given that we started from scratch, I was given the opportunity to work with the context, the proportions of the frames are golden section, which matches the windows within the courtyard. I was very keen to find a narrative that related to the Royal Academy, which is where I got the idea of the frames that twist from landscape to portrait. It does not mean much to architects, but to painters there has always been a relationship between landscape and portrait. For more information please visit wilkinsoneyre.com and and pleasewilkinsoneyre.com visit information more For http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/ 34 MADRID GENEALOGIES AND ARCHIVES IN ARCHITECTURE’S EXPANDED ACTS

Jacobo García-Germán is an architect who completed his MA Master in Histories & Theories at the AA. He discusses Madrid’s genealogies and curation within the city.

While curating architecture used to First of all, paradoxically, Madrid’s new be a secondary activity for architects, lease of life is promoting an awareness it has gradually become something which of its past: many of its forgotten and is increasingly gaining momentum in the neglected structures have been reclaimed agendas of many young practices. These for social uses. To name some, Madrid’s practices understand their work as one new Government Headquarters, with cultural projection, pointing towards CaixaForum Museum, by Herzog & De increasingly varied aims, with building just Meuron, or the Matadero complex, the one amongst other facets. restoration of an old slaughter house, by a We are witnessing a drive against group of young local offices, into a dynamic specialisation, with architects devoting cultural centre. Small crowds of architecture their efforts to simultaneous activities, students discover the renovated city in in which curating architecture – promoting visits led by young architects, usually the discovery, experience and acknowl- teachers in the city’s architectural schools. edgement of our built environment as an Some of them have teamed up in different educational activity for users or citizens platforms and think-tanks like Madrid – is gaining notoriety. Centro, Piensa Madrid and Planeta Beta, In Madrid, due to the huge changes with the aim of channelling this curiosity the city has undergone during the last six into the production of an intellectual stream years, a whole new awareness of context of thought focused on contemporary has emerged before the eyes of architects Madrid. The Madrid Architecture Guide and architecture students. Similar to 1975–2015, written by my office as a more Barcelona in the early 90s or recurrently extensive guide to the one published in in London (fuelling the briefs and pro- 2007, belongs to this sphere. It includes grammes of the AA units), the city proudly contributions by a total of 25 practising offers itself as a case study and as a new, architects and teachers from three different complex and exciting organism to be generations, turning the book into a rediscovered and newly experienced. kaleidoscope of visions and critical insights, The role young architects, in Madrid, are modifying the traditional catalogue format playing in this rediscovery is crucial, and into a provisional subjective and creative can be summed up in three complementary re-description of the city. Turning its awareness mechanisms: archives, genealo- character from the sacred (or forgotten) to gies and expanded acts. the object of critical revision, the dormant 35

permanently contribute to the educational and cultural activities, promoted by young architects. Madrid is unlike any other city, one can trace the genealogies and threads Garciagerman arquitectos, housing for EMVS social housing of filiation between architects in a non- programme, 2007. oppositional manner. The consolidation Photo Carlos Roca of open initiatives, like Freshmadrid, Hasta la Cocina or Symmetries Architecture Workshops+Congresses stage a role- playing in which hierarchies, ages and abilities are blurred, these popular initiatives, educational, informational and event-like structures blend with the pedigree of the old and the freshness of the young. Building visits, lectures, working sessions, open-office days and other events try to narrow the gap between architects and the rest of society. Finally, architects have literally taken to the streets to coincide with the Movimiento 15-M, a counter-culture demonstration, where a whole generation of young professionals have adapted the city as their testing-ground for alternative occupations of public space and experimental re- programming. Usually teamed up in small independent collectives, they have staged interesting events such as the re-use of the empty Plaza de la Cebada Market site, vacant lots in the Lavapies quarter, or animated important demonstrations against the Santiago Calatrava monolith in Plaza de Castilla or the closing up of the old Tabacalera Factory. This last example, a movement in which an architect-led protest archive of the city’s past is revisited. in favour of the self-managed use of the Further studies into this subject can be factory, by alternative collectives – and seen in the current exhibition in Móstoles’s against its planned transformation into yet Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo by artist Lara another institutional-run museum – man- Almarcegui based on her studies of Madrid’s aged to succeed in obtaining permission underground world, secret passages, from the local authorities. Having become sewage lines, metro infrastructures, holes, one of Madrid’s hot cultural hubs, it sums up wells and dens, and its avatars throughout the different ways in which Madrid’s young the centuries. architects are reinventing themselves. Secondly, the idea of genealogical Furthermore, it proves how curating, in the tuning as something that defines a certain broader sense of the word, appears as an trans-generational balance is something to opportunity for professional redefinition. take into account. In Madrid, architecture is often produced with interweaving connec- tions between different generations and opposing sensibilities. This has produced a certain solidarity or collective move, aimed towards the strengthening of a profession, now more threatened than

Jacobo García Germán runs GARCIAGERMAN García Jacobo please find out more visit To ARQUITECTOS. www.garciagerman.com ever, and one in which established names 36 AA TALKS LONDON 2012

Meneesha Kellay and Bobby Jewell compare notes on the first two events of the AA Talks London 2012 series organised by the AA Membership Office, 2012: A Story To Tell and Emerging Architects and the Park

2012: A Story to Tell was conceived out of owned Olympic Park, ‘we have been told, a desire to address the Olympic games and by the organisers, that they are creating this its impact on London, paramount being the public spirited legacy in line with the Great need to critique the notion that the Olympic Exhibition and the Festival of Britain. But, development would have a regenerative in fact, the Olympic Park which you would effect. The panel of speakers were asked be forgiven for thinking it is public, but to recount what East London’s legacy is it isn’t. It is exactly on the same Docklands now and what it will be in years to come, model of privately owned developments following the insertion of the Olympics which are sold off to the highest bidder.’ furthermore, the effect of these mega- While attempting to end on a hopeful events on cities. note, Minton stated that, ‘affordable The eminent panel comprised of; Anna housing is one thing that was really Minton, a writer and journalist, author of promised, and indeed, half of the homes Ground Control. Stephen Gill, a photogra- in the Olympic Village will be affordable. pher who lives and works in Hackney. But actually, the definition of affordable Through his publishing imprint, Nobody, housing has changed, always slippery: it Stephen has produced books, including now actually means 80% of market rent.’ Hackney Wick, Hackney Flowers and Architecture in Reverse (with Iain Sinclair). Speakers: Anna Minton, Stephen Saskia Sassen, one of the foremost Gill, Sam Jacob, Will Self and thinkers on the contemporary city, who Saskia Sassen at the Southbank’s Purcell Room. coined the term global city, author of many books including Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages; A Sociology of Globalisation. Will Self is a writer, broadcaster and critic, who has authored many books, including Psychogeography. With AA tutor Sam Jacob as chair, the talk began robustly with his poetic introduc- tion, “In a strange twist of ironic fates, the site in which the visionary architect Cedric Price once imagined a Fun Palace is now the site of the Olympic Park. The Fun Palace: that legendary, un-built and highly influential project; with its ideas of flexibility, adaptability, an idea of architecture as a social event, infrastructure; has met in the Olympics perhaps both its apogee and its apotheosis.” This left lingering questions, which Minton began to address with her insight into the publicly funded, but privately 37

Perspective of the unrealised Fun compared unfavourably to a 300-year-old Palace (1960–61) by Cedric Price, now the site of the Olympic School of Hawksmoor Church, which will Aquatics Centre by Zaha Hadid, be there when the Shard is gone. Self both AA graduates and former deemed this utterly irresponsible and urged tutors. architect in the audience to consider retraining as dentists, where ‘you might be able to more profitably exercise your creativity in a métier that did not involve such colossal ruination.’ Accurately Will Self observed, ‘If you want to look at the real, exciting memorial to what is going on in the East, you can look to the West, to Battersea Power Station, which eats developers for breakfast and spits out their bones.’ Feedback after the talk, particularly Will Self’s contribution, revealed both anger and admiration from architects in the audience. I find this hopeful, as there was certainly a lot of truth behind Self’s words. Pondering on the theme of this edition of AArchitecture, ‘Curating Architecture’, what I discovered at the end of the talk is what actually curates the architecture of the Olympic development is money, not the architects, as Self starkly recounted, Stephen Gill followed with his stunning ‘form follows finance’. photography, which treads the line between Following the collective beating the documentary and conceptual art beautifully. Olympics took at the first AA Talks London His photography not only allowed us to 2012 event, it was refreshing to see five visualize the abstract space we were emerging London based practices give hearing about, but also question our an inspiring talk to an audience of peers, perception of both the Hackney and showing that, despite restrictions and even Olympic landscape. having to masquerade as artists, the Saskia Sassen took us out of Hackney Olympics could be used as a positive and cast our thoughts to the global forces platform for their architectural talent. at work, that shape our cities through Tucked secretively, right behind the ‘mega-events’. She sees cities as complex Bow Flyover, Sugarhouse Studios served assemblages and ‘the fact that they are as a fitting venue for the evening. Home complex but incomplete enables sort of to and run by Assemble Studio, of Folly anarchy of the quotidian’. Sassen called for A Flyover fame, the event space was upon inhabitants of areas of the Olympic created through a self-initiated project with Park to act as makers, to not feel powerless the aid of the London Legacy Development to these large global forces but to Corporation and includes a workshop strengthen the urban tissue by re-pos- and bar/kitchen. sessing it. Tomas Klassnik, set the tone for the Finally Will Self began his tirade subtly discussion, with a wry knowing sense of by stating, ‘anybody here in the audience humour, and a body of work rooted in social who has been involved in working for the and local regeneration whilst displaying Olympic Development Authority. You are a colourful innovation and creativity that lickspittle, you are crucially involved in the was prescient in all the other practises. derogation of London.’ He criticised Renzo Much like Studio Weave’s ‘Floating Cinema’ Piano’s Shard (which happened to be created as part of the Cultural Olympiad, opening the same night) stating that it has and Assemble Studio’s work with the

For more information on members please events information more For www.aaschool.ac.uk/membership/events visit been built with a 65-year-life span which he local community. 38

‘Coca-Cola’ Beatbox Pavilion by Asif Khan and Pernilla Ohrstedt

The ‘Coca-Cola Beatbox’ Pavillion stories and central narratives to the designed by Asif Khan & Pernilla Ohrstedt talks that belied confident research was the most experimental and high and self promotion. This came in stark profile construction presented on the night, contrast to what Oliver Wainwright recently a 1000m2 structure that utilises interactive appointed Architecture and Design Critic technology to allow audiences to trigger for The Guardian, who chaired the event, music through touch, and tastefully had witnessed in the thought processes shunned overt branding. the more established practices involved. An energy to impress and challenge He concluded: was evident throughout, with practices ‘After so many stories in the press about unafraid to focus on details and specifics, young architects being excluded from whether they be historical, such as Studio Olympic work, it was great to see these Weaves Chaucer inspired ‘Paleys upon energetic practices using a tactical Pilers’ installation in Aldgate or the local, approach and seizing opportunities We Made That and their High Street 2012 – whether through self-initiated projects focused free newspaper entitled ‘The or making proposals for holes in the

Unlimited Edition’. There were strong masterplan.’ on members please events information more For www.aaschool.ac.uk/membership/events visit 39 THE PARADIGM OF AN URBAN TRANSFORMATION

Stefano Rabolli Pansera, founder of Beyond Entropy, describes how the first Angolan Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale came in to existence.

The plantation of Arundo Donax in the interstitial space between the existing buildings produces a Beyond Entropy Angola formulates a new urban condition which is both controversial hypothesis in view of stimu- a garden and an infrastructure. lating the debate on future planning policies: the morphing city may produce new models for sustainable urban development. By avoiding any radical destruction of the urban fabric, the plantation of Arundo Donax, in the interstitial space between the existing buildings, produces a new urban condition which is both a garden and an infrastructure for filtering waters and producing biomass for electricity. This energetic ‘common ground’ addresses the urgent need of services and develops an alternative method to imagine the form of the African city. In fact it addresses the issue of energy as urban form, not simply as a technological or engineering issue. It is a generic territorial model that is simultaneously public space and infrastructure (enhancing the morphing Beyond Entropy started in 2010 as an nature of the African city) and that can AA cluster and after several exhibitions, be repeated in several parts of the city it evolved into a limited company with and in the entire region. projects in Europe and Africa. In particular, The Angolan pavilion, at the Venice in the fast demographic growth of Luanda Architecture Biennale 2012, is a real-scale is the paradigm of an urban transformation prototype: visitors have the chance to that happens with recurrent problems walk through a morphing space which and similar contradictions through-out is both garden and infrastructure and to the entire continent: large conurbations experience the intensity of a primordial without urbanity; congestion without infra- space which is not configured, mastered structure; high-density without high-rise. or categorised yet. Despite the apparent lack of planning, the peri-urban areas of Luanda reveal a spatial intelligence that is often neglected: every space simultaneously performs a diversity of programmes and activities, and in the process the city turns into a morphing conurbation that resists any

Follow the link below to find out more about Beyond Entropy’s about Entropy’s findBeyond to out more below the link Follow the world: around projects www.beyondentropy.aaschool.ac.uk zoning or conventional planning. 40 VENICE TAKEAWAY: AN INTERNATIONAL APPROACH TO SHARED PROBLEMS

Vanessa Norwood, Head of AA Exhibitions, sheds light on her most recent project beyond the AA – curating the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale – in conversation with student editor, Manijeh Verghese

Venice Takeaway: Ideas to change British Architecture is the title of the British Pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Biennale in Venice. Rather than showcasing current British architecture, the pavilion looks outside of the UK, sending explorers out to countries ranging from Brazil to China, Germany to Nigeria to shed light on alternative modes of practice. The curators, the Director of Architecture, Design and Fashion at the British Council and Commissioner Vicky Richardson and the Head of AA Exhibitions, Vanessa Norwood chose ten architectural teams who will exhibit ideas discovered on their travels in the pavilion. Venice Takeaway is an experiment in the creative potential of sharing ideas across borders. Talking to Vanessa in the weeks leading up to the Biennale, she explains the gamble taken by the curators since, until the explorers returned, they had no idea what material they would be exhibiting within the pavilion. They took solace in the words of Albert Einstein who once said, ‘If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?’ In the interview below, she describes the biggest challenges and inspirations along the way:

Manijeh Verghese: How did you arrive at the idea of Venice Takeaway? Vanessa Norwood: The premise for Venice Takeaway came from Vicky Richardson. She wanted to approach the exhibition for the Biennale in a different way by looking at the relationships, policies and structures needed to make good architecture rather than showcasing the work of British architects, something that has been done many times in the past. Vicky invited me to work with her on this exciting, challenging project. We had worked together previously when she was Editor at Blueprint; we share similar aims on creating thought-provoking and beautiful shows about architecture and she is an admirer of our exhibitions at the AA. At the end of last year we wrote a brief for potential contributors outlining the type of projects we were looking for and then launched Venice Takeaway in January at the AA, travelling onwards to Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. 41

dRMM. Swan swimming amongst waterhouses, IJburg Waterbuurt West, Amsterdam

What were the criteria in selecting explorers? The explorers were selected by the British Pavilion Advisory Panel which was looking for proposals with ambitious ideas about how to change architecture but that were little known within the UK. We thought this would be a challenge as so much is published in print and online about work happening globally, but the successful projects managed to find interesting and new subjects to investigate. The call for submissions was open to anyone who had knowledge of the UK context as the project had to reflect a ‘gap’ in British practice. We encouraged submissions from a wide range of people from practising architects to students, curators to writers and researchers.

How do you feel the pavilion will respond to the Biennale’s theme: Common Ground? Chipperfield writes that Common Ground began with ‘a desire to emphasise shared ideas over individual authorship’, and hoped ‘to initiate dialogues rather than simply make a selection of individuals’. Both Common Ground and Venice Takeaway aim to discover imaginative and ambitious ways to negotiate the challenges of making architecture, looking at the wider context of how architecture is made. Venice Takeaway highlights the importance of mobility across borders, openness to new ideas and an international approach to shared problems. 42

What was the biggest challenge in organising such a far-reaching project? Perhaps the enormity of our project struck me most when I met in April with Bekim Ramku, the Commissioner to Kosovo’s entry in the Biennale and an AA alumnus. He showed me detailed drawings of their pavilion exhibition design. At that stage our explorers were away on their travels and we had no idea of what material they would collect and how the resulting exhibition might look. For all of us, curators, designers and explorers, it was an act of faith.

Has there been any reciprocal exchange about British architecture in the countries visited by explorers? All the explorers have made connections that will last into the future. They met up with local architects, town planners, politicians and the people that live in the cities, towns and villages they explored. Many of the explorations will continue both in the places they started and here in the UK. The Venice Takeaway show will return to the RIBA, London in February and we hope by then there will be another chapter to the story. In the accompanying catalogue to the show we ask very specific ques- tions of the explorers: How do you plan to take this forward? and how has the project expanded your international connections? Their answers show that participation has had an effect not only on their own work but is the start of many ongoing projects that could make a tangible differ- ence to the way we live in the UK, even challenging the way we perceive the remit of the architect. The forming of reciprocal relationships is key. We stated in our brief that openness, internationalism, and mobility were the principles at the heart of Venice Takeaway and our project will show that an exhibition can be a starting point rather than a frozen moment in time.

What inspiration can British architecture take from the pavilion? The show celebrates the role that research and travel play in the life of the architect. We hope that there will be tangible changes in the UK as a result of these explorations. For example dRMM will follow their journey to IJburg, Holland where they are researching floating housing by meeting with planners and politicians to discuss increasingly pertinent questions about pressing housing shortages in the UK. If anything, we hope that Venice Takeaway will act as a call to arms; a chance to reexamine and reassert the role of the architect. In the central ‘research emporium’ a series of lightboxes will illuminate the text of a set of imperatives. My favourite says simply ‘Be Bold’.

Venice Takeaway: Ideas to Change British Architecture (London, 2012) 208 pp, paperback, £18, is available to buy from the AA Bookshop and online from AA Publications at www.aaschool.ac.uk/publications. To learn more about the British Pavilion at the Venice the Venice at Pavilion the British about learn more To pleaseBiennale visit: www.venicetakeaway.com 43 NEW FROM AA PUBLICATIONS AND BEDFORD PRESS

In Search of the Forgotten Architect POA 1–22 Lilly Dubowitz Edited by Scrap Marshall and Jan Nauta With essays by Éva Forgács 130 pp, ills and Richard Anderson 220 x 135 mm, paperback 212 pp, 260 x 200 mm, paperback September 2012 August 2012 978-1-907414-21-3 978-1-907896-21-7 c £15 £30 POA 1–22 is an edited collection of the fi rst Stefan Sebök was a Hungarian-born 22 events by the Public Occasion Agency. architect who worked with Walter Gropius Previews, reviews and ephemera catalogue in Dessau and Berlin in the late 1920s, and the series of lectures, events and exhibi- then with fellow Hungarian emigré László tions organised by the agency over the last Moholy-Nagy on his famous Light Prop, two years. It includes ‘Cedric Price – Wish and later still moved to the Soviet Union We Were Here’, ‘OMA As An Educational to work with the constructivist architects Model’, as well as events by Iain Sinclair, Ginzburg, the Vesnin brothers and El Patrick Wright and Metahaven. Lissitzky. Details of his life are revealed through this book written by Sebök’s niece, Lilly Dubowitz, who meticulously pieces Bedford Press will launch POA 1–22 at the together clues and details of her uncle’s life 2012 New York Art Book Fair, which takes and work as if like an architectural detec- place at MoMa PS1 from 27–30 September. tive. This text is accompanied not only by www.nyartbookfair.com numerous illustrations of Sebök’s design work but by essays by historians Éva

For furtheron AA For information or Publications www.aaschool.ac.uk/publications visit order, to AA PressBedford of imprint is an Publications www.bedfordpress.org Forgács and Richard Anderson. 44 COUNCIL NOTES

Having just completed the 2011–12 session, Council would like to thank everyone Council wishes to thank the members involved in the process – from those concluding their service and welcome those tasked with compiling the documentation newly elected. We would like to thank the to organising and taking part in the on-site leaving members for their hard work and visit – for their success and hard work the time they have spent on Council. These during an incredibly busy year for all. members include Daniel Aram, Mike Davies, The QAA’s final report on the School will Merlin Eayrs, Julia King, Sophie Le Bourva, be publicly available via the QAA website Kenneth Powell and Jane Wernick. The in around six weeks’ time. Questions new Council session, 2012–13, will include regarding the QAA visit or requests for eight new members, elected in March after additional information may be sent via an uncontested vote. These new members email to Chris Pierce, who co-ordinated the are Joanna Chambers, Eleanor Dodman, assessment, at [email protected]. Lionel Eid, Summer Islam, Alexander Laing, Lastly, a member of Council has Hugh Pearman, Yasmin Shariff and Paul pledged a generous donation to the Warner. Additionally, Diana Periton, who School in support of completing the lateral has served on Council as an ordinary connections along the diploma corridor. member since 2008, was elected Honorary Construction will begin this summer and Vice President for the 2012–13 session. it is anticipated it will continue throughout A complete list of Council officers and the autumn term. The AA, in collaboration ordinary members is available on the with Wright & Wright architects, has taken members’ area of the AA website. steps to ensure as best it can that noise Other notable events over the last year and disruption to teaching and other include a visit from the Quality Assurance School activities are kept to a minimum. Agency (QAA). In July 2011 the Home Office confirmed details of new arrange- ments for ‘educational oversight’ of private colleges which sponsor inter- national students. These arrangements were part of a drive to improve standards of educational quality and immigration compliance which were the basis of the reforms to the points-based System for immigration. The AA made an application to the QAA for a Review for Education Oversight in order to be assessed for compliance in three main areas: academic standards, quality of learning opportunities and public information. The QAA’s scrutiny of the School included a lengthy application process and a two-day visit on site, which included meetings with students, tutors and administrative staff. The School has recently received a letter of confidence from the QAA, which supports the AA’s continuing status as a highly trusted sponsor permitted by the UK Border Agency to recruit and enrol non-EU students. 45 NEWS

PUBLISHED & EXHIBITED landscape architecture projects in the Ruth Lie (former AA Admissions world. The project is also featured in Coordinator) curated the architecture- Founder of ParaMateriel, Sevil Yazici Landscape Architecture Now! published based Friday Late at the V&A on 29 June (AA DRL MArch 2006) published by Taschen. 2012. It featured work by Tobias Klein ‘Computing Through Holistic Systems http://elviajero.elpais.com/fotogaleria/ (AA Unit Master) and Zoe Yee Chan Design Method: Material Formations jardines/fabulosos/elpgal/ (AADipl 2010) amongst others. Workshop’ in DEARQ 20120524elpepuvia_1/Zes/2 AArchitecture’s designer Claire McManus designed the leaflet for Vasiliki Geropanta (AA H&U MArch Arjan Scheer’s (AADipl 1999) review the event. student), participated with her Diploma of the International Architecture Biennale www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/f/ Thesis from the University of Patras Rotterdam was featured in a Dutch friday-late-unbuilt-deconstructing- (Greece) ‘Architecture and the City newspaper. The review focused on how architecture in SE Europe’ at the Macedonian a community can take responsibility for Museum of Modern Art and as part their environment, gradually transforming Matthias Sauerbruch (AADipl 1983) of the exhibition ‘GROUNDWORKS’ a deprived part of the city into a new and Louisa Hutton (AADipl 1985), at the old Municipal Hospital of Patras. community. both former AA tutors, were recently interviewed by the Neue Zürcher Seamus Ward (AADipl 1980) has Federico Martelli (AA EmTech MSc Zeitung’s art critic Ursula Seibold- published a book with the support of student) has self-published a small book, Bultmann (AA member since 2000). the Arts Council on a student project he a designed new edition of Jorge Luis www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/kultur/ completed in 1974. Titled 1974 – Belfast Borges’ El Aleph featuring his own literatur_und_kunst/ Lost, the book collects photographs photographs and renderings to illustrate architektur_ist_eine_angewandte_ taken of abandoned Belfast pubs. the short story. kunst-1.15825681#tab-kommentiert

Kevin Lim (AADipl 2003), principal of Kostas Grigoriadis (Diploma 2 Unit Peter Ferretto (former AA tutor) Studio SKLIM, has recently been chosen Master), Irene Shamma, Alex Robles exhibited at CU SPACE Gallery Beijing to exhibit at the Design Exchange in Palacio and Pavlos Fereos (all AA DRL in March 2012 Toronto, September to October 2012. MArch 2009), had their Masters design www.sklim.com thesis project included in the d3 Natural An exhibition by Liam Young (Diploma Systems exhibition at Gallery MC in 6 Unit Master) titled ‘Singing Sentinels: Of the many AA Members and Alumni Manhattan, New York. When Birds Sing a Toxic Sky’ was at represented at this year’s Venice the Mediamatic Gallery, Amsterdam from Biennale, we were pleased to hear from Jörg Heiler (AADipl 1995) has recently April to July 2012. Patrick Lynch (former AA Tutor), completed his doctorate at the TU www.mediamatic.net/252792/en/ Daryl Chen (AA H&U MA(Dist) 2004), Munich with a dissertation titled ‘Tactics singing-sentinels Cesare Griffa (AA DRL MArch 2002) to Act for the Lived Space: Perceptions and Sujit Nair (AADRL March 2004), all and Actions in the Urban Landscape’, to of whom have been invited to participate. be published by Transcript Verlag in 2013. LECTURES & SYMPOSIA Mazen Orfali (AADipl 2012) has had Ludovico Lombardi (AA DRL MArch his project from Diploma 6 entitled 2008) was interviewed by Luminous Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners will ‘Singing Landscapes: The Lost International lighting magazine in be sponsoring the next two years of Language Repository’ selected from June 2012. the Architecture Foundation’s education over 200 projects to be featured in www.ldvc.net programme, Urban Pioneers, which Bracket magazine’s annual publication www.lighting.philips.com engages teams of 16–19 year olds in At Extremes. areas undergoing significant change, http://brkt.org Eugene Soler (AAIS GradDip 2010) had empowering them to critically explore an experimental teahouse installation the transformations happening around Jamileh Manoochehri (AADipl 1983), at a gallery in Spitalfields as part of the them, develop new skills, and engage who currently lectures at the Leicester London Architecture Festival 2012. with mentors. School of Architecture (De Montfort University) has published a book through Superfusionlab, the practice founded by Eduardo Rico (AA LU MA 2003 and Peter Lang AG titled The Politics of Nate Kolbe (former AA Unit Master) and current LU Tutor) lectured on interface- Social Housing in Britain. Lida Charsouli (AA DRL MArch 2000), based design for urban environments is participating in the interactive Gaming with Enriqueta Llabres (AA Member) The ‘Xi’an Flowing Gardens’ project, by Exhibition Joue-le-Jeu at Gaite Lyrique at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Eduardo Rico (AA LU MA 2003 and Gallery in Paris. The installation is part Lausanne on 17 April 2012. current LU Tutor) of GroundLab, with of a series of interactive games where the http://memento.epfl.ch/event/ Eva Castro (AA DRL GradDiplDes 1995 building senses its visitors by four senses. relational-urbanism and director of the AA LU programme) www.gaite-lyrique.net and Holger Kehne (former AA tutor) www.superfusionlab.com of PlasmaStudio, was featured in El Pais as one of the most exciting contemporary 46

Mariana Ibanez, Nick Puckett (both 9th AHRA Conference held on 19–20 ACME, founded by Friedrich Ludewig AADRL MArch 2004), and Simon Kim May 2012 in Aberdeen, Scotland. The (AADipl(Hons) 2001) has been (AADRL MArch 2003) conducted the paper is currently under a cross-review successful in a number of recent ‘Beyond Mechanics’ workshop at Smart stage for further publication. competitions. The office has been Geometry 2012. The workshop developed www.rgu.ac.uk/news-and-events/ selected as winners of a competitive responsive clothing/cladding prototypes conferences/ bid process by Chester Council as using shape-memory polymer created architectural-humanities-research- masterplanners for Northgate, a large as part of the design process. association-student-conference regeneration project in the historic city http://vimeo.com/39123539 centre. A team led by Deena Fakhro Alfredo Ramirez (AA LU MA 2005 (AADipl(Hons) 2008) won the Vincenzo Reale (AA EmTech MArch and LU Tutor) lectured at KW Institute for international competition for the Royal student) organised a workshop of digital Contemporary Art, Berlin, 30 March 2012. Institute in Human Development in Riffa/ fabrication within the EmTech pro- Bahrain and will hand over completed gramme, which has also been published Francisco González de Canales detailed design information to the client on the online magazine EVOLO. (AA Unit Master and AACP) presented this summer. And a team led by Julia www.evolo.us/architecture/ to New York University in April 2012 Cano (AA DRL MArch 2008) won a super-surface-fabrication-architectural- following an invitation from Professor commission to develop a parametrically association-emergent-technologies Juan Jose Lahuerta. designed, robot-assembled brick façade http://empython.blogspot.co.uk for a large department store in the centre Tomas Klassnik (AA Unit Master) of Hamburg, Germany. Karola Dierichs (EmTech MArch(Dist) spoke at the Copy/Culture symposium in 2009, LU MA 2005, AA Dipl 1999) and Istanbul in April, organised by Premsela, Madeleine Kessler (AA fourth year Achim Menges (AA Dipl(Hons) 2002 on Architectural Reenactments and Inter student) has been awarded the 2012 and former AA Unit Master) presented 12 projects. KPF Travel Fellowship. She will spend their paper ‘Aggregate Architectures: the summer travelling through China, Observing and Designing with Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkey, Changeable Material Systems in exploring the merging of East Architecture’ at the ACSA International CAREERS & PRIZES and West in both the ancient and Conference CHANGE, Architecture, (rapidly developing) modern world, Education, Practices, in Barcelona. Superfusionlab, the practice founded by along the ancient trading routes of Nate Kolbe (former AA Unit Master) and the Old Silk Road. Francesco Emanuele Contaldo Lida Charsouli (AA DRL MArch 2000), www.kpf.com/news.asp?id=109 (AA SED MSc 2011) was invited to received an Honourable Mention in present his work at the last edition the Cypriot Competition for the Museum dotA, the practice of Yan Gao (AA DRL of the Energy Forum (Bressanone, of Agricultural Heritage in Eptagonia MArch 2005), Assistant Professor at December 2011). He showed a project Lemessos. the University of Hong Kong, has of a photovoltaic greenhouse park. www.superfusionlab.com recently won first prize on a competition He also presented research on the for social housing in Shenzhen, China. environmental performance of traditional Abdel Halim Chehab, Suraj Suthar They also completed the interior design windows in the Mediterranean context at and Swapnil Gawande (AA EmTech for a Spanish wine bar in Beijing. Retrofit 2012 (Manchester, January 2012). MArch students) were awarded a special mention for their entry in the EVOLO Arjan Scheer (AADipl 1999) recently Emanuel de Sousa (AA PhD Skyscraper Design Competition 2012. received second prize in an open candidate) presented a paper entitled www.evolo.us/competition/ two-stage competition for a ‘Booster ‘Other Places Redux, c 1960–present’ aakash-skyscraper/#more-16658 Station’ to be situated in a park near discussing the disruption of ‘orthotopo- Rotterdam. graphic’ thought and the reverberation Carlos Umana Gambassi (AA LU of ‘heterotopology’ within city formations MArch 2010) was honoured the Drago Vodanovic (AADRL MArch at the Designing Place International Research Category at the XI 2008) and Tomas Jacobsen Urban Design Conference at The International Architecture Biennale (AADRL MArch 2009) are launching University of Nottingham. celebrated in Costa Rica on 6 May 2012. an architecture school at the south end He participated with his final project of Chile, in Puerto Montt city. They refer Yosuke Nagumo (AA DRL MArch 2001) in the MA in Landscape Urbanism to it as a school ‘in the end of the world’ presented a research paper entitled programme, ‘Tactical Morphologies’. and have worked on the project for ‘Potential of Sustainable Architecture almost two years. as a Style’ at the 24th World Congress Salma Samar Damluji (AADipl 1977 http://ptomontt.arquitecturauss. of Architecture at the Tokyo International and former AA H&U tutor), Chief cl/?category_name=noticias Forum in September 2011. He was also Architect and Founder of the Daw’an selected by the Architectural Institute Mud Brid Architecture Foundation, Jan Pietje Witt (AADipl 1999) of of Japan in Selected Architectural based in Hadramut (Yemen), was one Studio Witt has won one of the three Design 2012 (published March 2012) of five architects who received the Locus ‘Young Architects Hamburg 2012’ awards, for his work on the Hackney Service Foundation Global Award for Sustainable given to architects under 40 years of Centre with Hopkins Architects. Architecture 2012, for her work and age for outstanding achievement in their projects in Yemen, at a Ceremony in first six years in private practice. Sushant Verma’s (AA EmTech MArch Paris on 13 April 2012. www.drost-consult.de/media/ student) design research paper www.dawanarchitecturefoundation.org 1338881991_Broschuere_JAH.pdf entitled ‘Exploring Principles of Plectic Architecture to activate Urban Voids’ was selected to be presented for the 47

Ben Reynolds (AADipl(Hons) 2012) of a sustainable hotel for the 2014 co-founder of Palace architectural São Paulo World Cup. Hotel Aliah was design and research practice, was developed in partnership with hiperstudio. selected to show work at the École www.arkiz.com.br spéciale for DIAGRAMME(S) exhibition www.esa-paris.fr/Exposition- Andrew Tam, Sanaa Shaikh (both Diagramme-s.html?lang=fr AADipl 2010) and Helena Westerlind palacepalace.com (AADipl 2011), along with Portuguese Architect Bernardo Dias, have combined Mollie Claypool (AA H&T MADist 2009, their talents to form S/A/U/C/E – DRL tutor and HTS lecturer) has been an Architectural Collective interested appointed as Web Editor of the European in socially driven design, building upon Architectural History Network. their successful AA ventures including Cinema Lalibela and Project Kiteweb. White Cube Bermondsey, by Casper They have recently been shortlisted Mueller Kneer Architects, founded for Hackney City Farm’s competition by former AA tutors Marianne Mueller to design a new shop extension made (AADipl 1995) and Olaf Kneer from locally sourced re-used materials. (AADipl 1993), has received an www.wearesauce.com Excellence in Design commendation from the UK Chapter of the American Serie, the practice founded by Chris Lee Institute of Architects. (AADipl(Hons) 1998 and Director of www.aiauk.org/annual-design-awards the AA’s Projective Cities programme) www.cmk-architects.com and Kapil Gupta (AA DRL 2000), has won a competition to design the New RARE, the practice of Michel da Costa Singapore Subordinate Courts Complex. Gonçalves (AA EmTech MA 2005) and Construction will begin next year and Nathalie Rozencwajg (AADipl 2001), is scheduled to complete in 2019. Inter 4 Unit Masters, has won a number www.dezeen.com/2012/06/15/ of awards. They were awarded Building singapore-subordinate-courts-by-serie- of the Year in the ArchDaily Awards (by architects-and-multiply-architects popular vote) for their Town Hall Hotel refurbishment, which was also declared ‘Five of the Best Hotel Interiors in London’ by ELLE-UK. The practice was featured in Architecture Now! Vol 8, and Nathalie Rozencwajg received a commendation in the Architect’s Journal Emerging Woman Architect of the Year design award.

Nuria Alvarez Lombardero and Francisco Gonzalez de Canales (Inter 8 Unit Masters) of Canales & Lombardero and academic initiative Politics of Fabrication Laboratory, were selected by Arquia Proxima Young Architect 2012.

University College Hospital Macmillan Cancer Centre by Hopkins Architects opened its doors to patients on 2 April 2012. Bonnie Chu (AADipl 2008) was involved with this project at Hopkins from the start of the construction stage. www.hopkins.co.uk/s/projects/6/138

Studio Egret West, co-founded by AA Alumnus Christophe Egret (1968), have completed the Shoal in front of the Olympic site entrance, around the northern edge of the Stratford Centre. They have also received several awards for their new library building in Clapham. http://egretwest.com

Brazilian practice Estúdio ARKIZ, co-founded by Alexandre Hepner (AA SED MSc 2011) has won a competition for the construction 48

OBITUARIES Libya. Chairman of Higgins Gardner & Mason’s recent biography of the band. Partners from 1986, his work focused Leonard’s step brother David Hardman Brian (Beak) Adams (AADipl(Hons) on the adaptation or alteration of historic studied at the AA, where Pink Floyd 1949) died on 28 November 2011 aged 88. buildings, most notably the Bank of played a legendary gig at a student party. He worked with the Hertfordshire England Museum (winner of the 1988 Leonard died at his home in May. AA County Architects’ Department straight City Heritage Award), which accurately Graduate Michael Ball, a friend of fifty after graduating, engaged on the reinstated Sir John Soane’s Bank Stock two years, is preparing an obituary ‘Hertfordshire Experiment’, the now Office. Higgins also had a strong for the architectural press and would celebrated programme of primary school connection with academia, lecturing appreciate contributions from those who design, and in the early 1950s joined at Kingston School of Architecture, at knew Mike via [email protected] the LCC Architects Department created the Hochschule für Technische, Stuttgart, by Robert Matthew. In private practice as chair of architecture and housing at ‘In 1969 Royston Summers went to the since 1955, he was responsible for University College Dublin, and visiting RIBA to collect his medal for Good designs as varied as the interior of the professor at the University of Virginia. AA Design in Housing from the Minister of Davidoff Cigars shop on the corner of Members and students of the Housing, Tony Benn. After the function St James’s and Jermyn St in the 1970s Department of Tropical Studies will be he returned home and changed into and Bute House Preparatory School saddened to hear of the death of Renate jeans to go to collect his dole money…’ for Girls (Hammersmith) in 1956, which Köenigsberger in May of this year. – the first lines of a touching obituary his son Rob Adams, founder of Adams & Renate escaped Nazi Germany with of AA graduate Roy Summers (AADipl Collingwood Architects, was commis- her mother, arriving in Britain in the mid 1961) published in The Independent sioned to refurbish 40 years later. Brian 1930s where, following time at a Church on 12 June 2012. After a short spell married fellow AA student Catherine of England boarding school, she studied working for Cornwall County Council, Elder and remained an active AA Chemistry at St Andrews and Glasgow Roy Summers set up his own practice Member throughout his life, serving on University, subsequently working as an in Blackheath in 1964, specializing in the AA Council between 1957 and 1960. industrial chemist for Beechams and at energy-efficient housing for which he J. Lyons’ laboratories. In 1957 she married won a number of awards and prizes. Austrian architect Günther Domenig, the pioneering architect and planner At the AA Roy was site architect for the founding partner of Domenig & Wallner, Otto Köenigsberger, who was the driving extension at the top of the Morwell Street who famously designed the Z-bank force behind the AA’s Department of block, where the Graduate School building in Vienna, passed away on Tropical Studies. Renate continued her offices are currently based. Roy died 15 June 2012. Numerous tributes have studies, taking a PhD and then lecturing in Bristol on 30 May 2012. been published in the architectural press. in Chemistry at Surrey University, a role Peter Cook in The Architectural Review she combined with looking after Otto reminds us that the AA’s Alvin Boyarsky following his development of a brain staged an evocative exhibition of the tumor and subsequent operations. After work of the practice in the 1980s, at Otto’s death in 1999, Renate compiled a time when Domenig was embarking an abstract of his publications and on his life’s dream and magnum opus: ensured that his research material and the construction of the Steinhaus on hugely important archives (now donated the lakeside site outside Klagenfurt. The to the AA Archives) were accessible wherewithal for this undoubtedly came to scholars. from some very substantial commissions that helped place the practice’s work AA Alumni from the 1960’s and early in the international architectural 1970’s may remember Mike Leonard, conscience. who has been described as ‘the fifth member’ of Pink Floyd. Leonard studied Robert Elwall, assistant director of architecture at Leicester University the RIBA’s British Architectural Library and dance at the Laban Institute and the founder and curator of the RIBA under the founder Rudolf Laban. A true Library Photographs Collection and renaissance man, gifted intellectually RIBApix died 7 March 2012. Read more and physically, he was a keen high at www.architectsjournal.co.uk. board diver, skier, ice skater, pianist, harpsichordist and drummer, as well We were sorry to learn that Professor as a celebrated landscape gardener Harold Cassius (Hal) Higgins and architect. He taught at Hornsey (AADilp(Hons) 1950 and former College of Art and at the Hochschule AA Councillor), died in June 2011. für Gestaltung, Ulm. As a tutor at London As founding partner of Higgins Ney & Poly in the early 1960’s he met some Partners since 1954, Higgins developed of the later members of Pink Floyd, first a strong reputation for high-density, year students of architecture at the time, low-rise housing with novel planning who moved into his house and founded arrangements, receiving a Civic Trust a band then known as Leonard’s Lodgers. Award in 1970. As public housing projects Leonard’s research at Hornsey College declined the firm’s other specialism, on the interplay between rhythm, exhibition design, came to the fore. movement and light gave form to ‘light Beginning with the interior of the machines’ (built at 39 Stanhope Gardens, Museum of London, Higgins Ney quickly his home, office and workshop), the main attracted museum clients in the UK inspiration behind Pink Floyd’s signature and overseas, including Saudi Arabia and light shows as recognised in Nick NEXT ISSUE’S THEME

ARCHITECTURE AS RESEARCH

CONTRIBUTIONS TO [email protected] SCHOOL ANNOUNCEMENT

VENICE ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE 2012

MEMBERS’ TRIP TO THE 13TH VENICE ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE

21–23 SEPTEMBER 2012

The AA Membership Office is organising a weekend visit to the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale, Common Ground, directed by David Chipperfield. Vanessa Norwood, head of AA Exhibitions, is co-curating this year’s British Pavilion with Vicky Richardson (British Council) and will lead a private talk on their work at the Biennale.

Members attending this trip will also get a 3-day pass to both the Arsenale and Giardini and two nights accommodation. More details to be announced. www.aaschool.ac.uk/membership/events STUDENTNEXT ISSUE’S ANNOUNCEMENT THEME

THE COMMONPLACE

FULCRUM, THE AA’S FREE WEEKLY, WILL BE PRODUCING A DAILY SHEET, FORARCHITECTURE FOUR DAYS AT THE VENICE ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE THIS YEAR, AS PART OF THE BRITISH PAVILION. AS RESEARCH 27–30 AUGUST 2012

Its theme and title, ‘The Commonplace’, unpublished writers as well as some of the is a response to David Chipperfield’s world’s best known architects, scientists, curatorial direction for the Biennale: philosophers, economists, and artists. ‘Common Ground’. Our format is a single sheet each week with Fulcrum was started two years ago by two opposing articles on the same topic students on the premise that post-crash arranged as a dialectic. The name Fulcrum Western society is experiencing a period refers both to the pivot around which the of total paradigmatic metamorphosis, from articles operate as well as the tipping point which we can only assume it will emerge beyond which established normality breaks in a radically altered form some time after down. the end of the decade. We are accordingly trying to track that change and speculate about the potential futures this change offers [email protected] us — contributors have included previously fulcrum.aaschool.ac.uk

CONTRIBUTIONS TO [email protected] SCHOOL ANNOUNCEMENT TECTURE ARCHI CURAT VENICE

ARCHITECTUREING BIENNALE 2012

MEMBERS’ TRIP TO THE 13TH VENICE ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE

21–23 SEPTEMBER 2012

The AA Membership Office is organising a weekend visit to the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale, Common Ground, directed by David Chipperfield. Vanessa Norwood, head of AA Exhibitions, is co-curating this year’s British Pavilion with Vicky Richardson (British Council) and will lead a private talk on their work at the Biennale. - - Members attending this trip will also get a 3-day pass to both the Arsenale and Giardini and two nights accommodation. More details to be announced. www.aaschool.ac.uk/membership/events