Author: Mirna Pedalo

Exhibition Opening: “Dressing / Undressing the Landscape” curated by DS22 tutor Yara Sharif, Friday, March 1, 18:00-20:00, Rich Mix

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Friday, 1st of March 2019, 18:00 – 20:00 GMT

Where: Rich Mix, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA

 

Dressing/Undressing the Landscape explores means to rethink the current cultural landscape of the Middle East.

In a dialogue between architecture, art and spatial design, female architects and artists from the Arab world and beyond, bring forward new insights to the cities of Gaza, Mosul, Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut, Ramallah and the rural villages of Palestine.

The works provoke the current geography of the Middle East and the way it is being represented, exploited and imagined — especially with the on-going colonial project that continues to dress it with alien layers and new sceneries.

The contributors question through design, what might a landscape crafted by women be like? They offer alternatives that resist the legislated power of men, the power of war and the power of image, which have been constantly reinvented.

In the cities of Mosul, Damascus and Baghdad Dressing/Undressing the Landscape goes beyond the surface to cultivate hope; contributors share the beauties of everyday life and the hidden agencies that shape their cities.

In Palestine, Undressing the Landscape is a way to expose the hidden potentials of the ‘edges’ and what has become a leftover landscape. In Beirut however, the work reveals the naked reality of what appears to be a ‘magical’ setting; it narrates the underground life of Syrian Refugees.

Exhibitors:

  • Palestine Regeneration Team (PART) — Yara Sharif, Hemali Rathod, Julia Topley
  • Sakiya: Art, Science, Agriculture — Sahar Qawasmi
  • Rim Kalsoum
  • Hiba Al-Safi
  • Nuha Hansen
  • Angeliko Sakellariou
  • Dana Nasser
  • May Sayrafi
  • Samar Maqusi

This exhibition is curated by Yara Sharif from Palestine Regeneration Team (PART).

It will be accompanied by a panel discussion on Arab cities and the making, redefining and reclaiming of public space, on 9 March 2019 as part of Arab Women Artists Now Festival @ Rich Mix main space from 14.00 – 16.00pm.

AWAN, which is about to enter its 5th edition, showcases the work of contemporary Arab women artists in the UK, Europe and beyond, providing opportunities for artists and audiences to celebrate, be informed and network whilst exposing new audiences to the work of emerging and established artists. www.awan.org.uk

AWAN is produced by Arts Canteen and supported by Rich Mix London

This private view of the “Dressing/Undressing the Landscape” exhibition event is free and open to all but registration is essential to attend.

To book please go to: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dressingundressing-the-landscape-tickets-56815700289?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

 

Monsoon [+other] Grounds Symposium, Thursday 21st, 16:00 – Friday 22nd of March, 18:00, M416, Marylebone Campus

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Thursday, 21st of March 2019, 16:00 – Friday, 22nd of March 2019, 18:00

Where: Room M416, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

Monsoon [+ other] Grounds is the third in a series of symposia convened by the Monsoon Assemblages project. It will comprise a key-note address, inter-disciplinary panels, and an exhibition. The event will bring together scholars and practitioners from a range of disciplines to engage in conversations about geologies, soils, histories, spatialities, and modifications of monsoon [+ other] grounds.

The confirmed keynote speaker is:

Tim Ingold, Professor and Chair of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. His early work involved ethnographic research amongst the Skolt Saami of northeast Finland. This led to a more general concern with human-animal relations. Most recently, he has been working on the connections between anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture, conceived as ways of exploring the relations between human beings and the environments they inhabit, as mutually enhancing ways of engaging with our surroundings. Ingold is author of numerous books, anthologies and essays, including, most recently, The Life of Lines (Routledge, 2015) and Anthropology: Why it Matters (Polity Press, 2018).

The event programme will be released shortly.

To book tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/monsoon-other-grounds-symposium-tickets-53177045976 

“Humanitarian Sediments”, Lecture by Professor Lindsay Bremner at Goldsmiths’ Visual Cultures Programme, Thursday, February 28, 17:00-19:00

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Thursday, 28th of February 2019, 17:00-19:00

Where: LG02, Stuart Hall Building, Goldsmiths, London SE14 6NW

This presentation will be about sediment and humanitarian violence. It will examine the response of the Bangladesh government to the influx of 600,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in 2017. Mobilising suspension as analytical method, it will argue that Bangladesh’s response has enlisted or ‘weaponised’ sediment, to both offer and undercut hospitality to the Rohingya, un-grounding them and heightening their political and material precariousness.

Event is free, no booking required.

Celebrating Geoffrey Bawa, Wednesday, March 13, 18:00-21:00, Room 416, Marylebone Campus

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Wednesday 13th of March 2019, 6pm – 9pm (Talk Starts at 6.30pm)

Where: University of Westminster, School of Architecture & Cities, Room 416, 4th Floor, Marylebone Campus, London NW1 5LS (near Baker Street Station)

 

Monsoon Assemblages has teamed up with the Friends of Sri Lanka to celebrate the work of Geoffrey Bawa.

Bawa (1919 – 2003) is regarded as one of the most in infuential Asian architects of his generation and a pioneer of a style that has become known as “Tropical Modernism”. We hope that staff and students in the School of Architecture + Cities will join us.

Booking is via Eventbrite at https://geoffreybawa. eventbrite.co.uk for a small cost, but there are some FREE places for staff and students at the School of Architecture + Cities. We ask that you kindly email Chamali Fernando at the Friends of Sri Lanka Association Chamali.FOSLA@gmail.com to have your name placed on the guest list.

At the event, architect Wendy de Silva and writer David Robson will look back on the life and work of Sri Lankan master architect Geoffrey Bawa. Both Wendy and David knew Geoffrey Bawa personally and will remember him with professional pride, personal anecdotes and joy. The evening will also incorporate the launch of David’s latest book: Bawa Staircases.

2019 marks the centenary of the birth of Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa. Bawa was born in Colombo in 1919 to parents of mixed Sri Lankan and European descent. He studied English at Cambridge and Law in London during the Second World War and then worked brie y as a lawyer in Colombo. In 1948, he bought an abandoned rubber estate near Bentota and set out to transform it into a Sri Lankan evocation of a classical European garden. It was this project that inspired him to become an architect. Returning to London, he qualified as an architect at the Architectural Association and, in 1957, became a partner in the Colombo practice of Edwards, Reid & Begg. He then embarked on a forty-year career in architecture, during which he created such masterpieces as the Bentota Beach Hotel, the Sri Lankan Parliament at Kotte, the Ruhunu University Campus and the Kandalama Hotel near Dambulla. Bawa’s career ended in 1998 when he was felled by a stroke and he eventually died in 2003. In 2001, he received the Aga Khan’s Award for a Lifetime’s Achievement in Architecture.

David Robson is a Professor of Architecture and must be the world’s leader in Bawa studies. From 2002, with the publication of his Geoffrey Bawa: the complete works to 2018 and the publication of Bawa Staircases, David has written four major books on Bawa, with more on his associates. He is the holder of the Geoffrey Bawa Trust Award for Lifetime Achievement and he has much to tell us. Copies of Bawa Staircases and other David Robson books will be available to purchase on the night.

Wendy de Silva is an award-winning architect who practices in London at the IBI Group. During the early 1980s, Wendy worked with Bawa on the design of the Ruhunu University Campus. Wendy is also one half of the Chance de Silva practice in London, a practice set up to explore the possibilities of architecture in interaction with other participants: artists, designers, musicians (and who can forget Laki Senanayake’s divine copper balustrade winding its way round the central staircase of Bawa’s Lighthouse Hotel at Galle; the elegant inhabitants of Sri Lanka grappling with occidental invaders, a figure playing a pipe at the very top – oriental calm in the face of violence – nor, amongst many such instances, the same artist’s delicious trees drawn through several storeys of the Triton Hotel at Ahungalla).

Lindsay Bremner & Chamali Fernando

Monsoon Assemblages & The Friends of Sri Lanka Association

l.bremner@westminster.ac.uk  Chamali.FOSLA@gmail.com

Featured image: Geoffrey Bawa, Steel Corporation Offices and Housing, 1966–1969

Expanded Territories Reading Group: “Improvised Lives” by AbdouMaliq Simone, Tuesday, April 9, 18:00, M330

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

The Expanded Territories Reading Group will be held on Tuesday 9th of April at 18.00 in M330, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster NW1 5LS.

Professor Lindsay Bremner will introduce AbdouMaliq Simone’s Improvised Lives (2018).

The poor and working people in cities of the South find themselves in urban spaces that are conventionally construed as places to reside or inhabit. But what if we thought of popular districts in more expansive ways that capture what really goes on within them? In this important new book AbdouMaliq Simone portrays urban districts as sites of enduring transformations that mediate between the needs of residents not to draw too much attention to themselves and their aspirations to become small niches of exception.

Suggested future titles are:

Amitav Gosh (2016). The Great Derangement. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Cadena, M. de la and Blaser, M., eds. (2018). A world of many worlds. Durham: Duke University Press.

Viriasova, I. (2018). At the limits of the political: affect, life, things. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield International.

Expanded Territories Reading Group: “Unruly Waters” by Sunil Amrith, Tuesday, March 12, 18:00, M330

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

The next Expanded Territories Reading Group will be held on Tuesday 12th of March at 18.00 in M330, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster NW1 5LS.

Anthony Powis will introduce Sunil Amrith’s Unruly Waters.

Asia’s history has been shaped by her waters. In Unruly Waters, historian Sunil Amrith reimagines Asia’s history through the stories of its rains, rivers, coasts, and seas–and of the weather-watchers and engineers, mapmakers and farmers who have sought to control them.

Suggested future titles are:

Amitav Gosh (2016). The Great Derangement. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Cadena, M. de la and Blaser, M., eds. (2018). A world of many worlds. Durham: Duke University Press.

Viriasova, I. (2018). At the limits of the political: affect, life, things. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield International.

DS24 tutor Alessandra Cianchetta at Architecture Foundation’s “Architecture on Stage” – Thursday, March 14, 19:00-21:00

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Thursday, 14th of March 2019, 19:00-21:00

Where: Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS

Architecture on Stage is a series of talks by the world’s best architects programmed by the Architecture Foundation in partnership with the Barbican Centre.

Alessandra Cianchetta is an architect and founding partner of AWP, an architecture practice based in Paris and London.

Born in Italy, Cianchetta studied architecture at La Sapienza in Rome, ETSA Madrid and ETSA Barcelona, before setting up AWP in 2008.

Her recent projects include Poissy Galore, a museum and observatory (pictured) which is part of a 113 hectare park on the Seine near Paris; the masterplan for Paris-La Défense, a grand-scale public realm project; and an arts district in Liverpool.

Cianchetta has taught architecture and urban design at Cornell University, University of Virginia, Columbia University and The Berlage.

Alessandra Cianchetta currently runs MArch Design Studio 24 alongside Juan Piñol at the School of Architecture + Cities, University of Westminster.

To book tickets please go to: https://www.architecturefoundation.org.uk/events/architecture-on-stage-alessandra-cianchetta 

 

Article 25 Lecture Series “Make Design Matter”: Bethel Secondary School in Burkina Faso designed by Article 25, February 21, 18:30-20:30, at New London Architecture

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: 21st of February, 18:30-20:30

Where: New London Architecture, Store Street, London WC1E 7BT

Last year, Article 25, an NGO specialised in humanitarian architecture with a particular emphasis on building resilience in vulnerable communities, started “Make Design Matter” – a series of monthly inspirational talks for humanitarians.

Article 25, in partnership with the BRE Trust and venue host NLA, are bringing together outstanding design professionals who work to support the most vulnerable in society across the developing world. These inspiring monthly panel discussions consider the pursuit of progressive, sustainable architecture which focus on the communities they serve.

Previous guests have included Laura Katharina and Ellen Rouwendal, winners of Dezeen’s “Small Building of the Year” award last year.

This February talk will be delivered by Bea Sennewald, Director of Projects at Article 25. The talk will be followed by a panel discussion with invited guests.

To book tickets please go to: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/make-design-matter-bethel-secondary-school-designed-by-article-25-tickets-55711477529

[Students get FREE tickets]

Architecture Research Forum: “Gordon Cullen’s Shed” Sarah Milne, Thursday, February 7, 13:00-14:00, Erskine Room, 5th Floor

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: 13:00-14:00, Thursday, 7th of February

Where: Erskine Room (M523), 5th Floor, Marylebone Campus

Sarah Milne is a Lecturer in the History and Theory of Architecture at Westminster. She is currently leading an M.Arch. seminar group centred on Cullen. Sarah is also a historian at the Survey of London, the Bartlett, UCL.

LFA Symposium: Call for Participants_Deadline: 3pm, Friday, January 25,

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

The LFA has launched its call for participants for the second annual LFA Symposium, organised in partnership with the Royal Academy of Arts. The LFA Symposium is a focal point of the LFA programme, and offers an outstanding platform for participants to share and develop their thinking while networking alongside prominent architects, academics and commentators.

The LFA invites both emerging and established architects, researchers and practitioners whose work explores the 2019 LFA theme of ‘boundaries’ to apply to take part in the Symposium, which will take place at the Royal Academy of Arts during the London Festival of Architecture in June 2019. When considering the role and application of boundaries in architecture, applicants are encouraged to consider both tangible and intangible boundaries. Examples include:

Tangible boundaries:

  • Physical boundaries such as borders, fences and walls and their impact on day-to-day physical experiences of the city
  • Critical assessments of the historic importance of physical boundaries
  • Architectural boundaries, privacy and the body

Intangible boundaries:

  • Unseen geographical boundaries such as postcodes or administrative borders
  • Bridging invisible lines of separation between different social groups
  • Assessments of the effect of land ownership and the perception of space

At this initial stage, potential participants are invited to submit an abstract of up to 300 words and a one-page CV by 3.00pm on Friday 25 January 2019.

The successful applicants will be invited to present their selected work at the second London Festival of Architecture symposium at Royal Academy of Arts on Friday 14 June 2019.

Read more in: Call for Participants document (pdf)

To submit entry go to: https://www.londonfestivalofarchitecture.org/symposium/ 

 

The LFA Symposium was established in 2018 by the LFA in partnership with the Royal Academy of Arts, as a focal point of the festival to offer a rich exploration of the festival’s annual theme. In 2018, the inaugural LFA Symposium – entitled Does Identity Matter? brought together 150 prominent architects, academics and commentators, and featured a range of leading figures including architect Mary Duggan alongside writer and broadcaster Tom Dyckhoff.

Tamsie Thomson, director of the London Festival of Architecture, said:

Once again the LFA Symposium promises to be a highlight of our festival programme in 2019, and our open call for participants is a brilliant opportunity to share thinking and a stage with some of the best architects, academics and commentators around. Our 2019 festival theme of ‘boundaries’ is deliberately broad, and I’m certain it will provoke a fascinating exploration of how tangible and intangible boundaries affect life in the city, and how architects can understand and unlock the many puzzles that those boundaries present.

Maya Ober, designer and research associate at the Institute of Industrial Design, FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Basel, responded to our call for participants for the inaugural LFA Symposium in 2018, where she presented her research into identity within the built environment. She said:

The LFA Symposium showed how important it is to foster critical reflection on the politics of design and architectural practice. Participation in the LFA Symposium has led to the further development of my research as well as facilitating establishing new professional networks.