Charles Correa: dirty work but someone's got to do it
Charles Correa, talking at the RIBA’s Florence Hall, opening the ‘Out of India’ exhibition commemorating his gift of 6,000 drawings to the Drawings Collection, fell to earth for me when, in answer to one post-lecture question, he said architects should not become politicised - that their remit was purely in the control of the visual realm, says Jan-Carlos Kucharek.
Happy talk
‘It is so moral, so British, to claim the disk roof is at that angle for PVs not for the beauty of it.’ So said Charles Jencks co-founder of Maggies’ to Ted Cullinan, the architect of the latest Maggies Centre in Newcastle. Jencks has the trick of sounding more authoritative on the work of Cullinan than does Cullinan himself...
Sneak preview: British Museum extension
The last time I took a close look at progress on the British Museum’s new £135m extension, it was 2011, and just a great big L-shaped hole in the ground. And a very deep hole at that: in order to pack a lot of accommodation onto a very tight site next to the Grade 1 listed museum , this is a stealth building – actually a linked group of ‘pavilions’ - that goes a long way into the ground – 18.79m deep.
Calder After the War
There’s an exquisite piece in the new Alexander Calder exhibition entitled Rat, whose whiskery form only crystallises in its carefully cast shadow. Calder’s distinctive mobiles are instantly recognisable but this beautifully staged show, Calder After the War at the Pace London gallery, makes the viewer consider anew not just the colour and form of these carefully engineered pieces but the importance of lighting and shadow in creating the overall effect.
RIBA Journal is celebrating the art of architecture and we want your drawings to do it. But time is running out – send us your images today! A special issue of RIBA Journal, devoted to the competition, will publish the winning entries. Deadline: 10 June.
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A Design Fiction
Dunne and Rabby’s latest exhibition United Micro Kingdoms – A Design Fiction is not so much a design show but an exploration of four different ways of living in the future. And while it is as the title says, a fiction, there is enough resonance with reality to make it uncomfortably close to home.
Sixty years of typographic innovation including decades of design for Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum with Crouwel’s awkward computer-style font, New Alphabet.
The Lighthouse, 11 Mitchell Lane, Glasgow, Scotland G1 3NU
www.thelighthouse.co.uk
The big ideas that will shape Bristol’s future. Includes an interactive map to encourage comment on future developments.
The Architecture Centre, Narrow Quay, Bristol, BS1 4QA
www.architecturecentre.co.uk
Investment in creaking infrastructure is the cry. London’s Crossrail, Thames Tideway Tunnel, H-B Designs’ Ealing Broadway Cycle Hub and Quietways (calmer bike routes) plus a 100 or so others.
New London Architecture, The Building Centre, 26 Store Street, London WC1E 7BT
www.newlondonarchitecture.org
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