EVENT: Architecture + Film

RIBA Building Futures Debate: This House Believes We Have Lost Sight of the Future takes place at the BFI on 17 November. Chaired by Ben Hammersley of Wired magazine and including contributions from François Penz, University of Cambridge and Eric Parry, Eric Parry Architects with Sean Griffiths, Director and Co-Founder of Fashion Architecture Taste Ltd. £5 well spent.

Curated by Mike Althorpe (who is sitting opposite me).

London Moves Me

Walk, bus or skip over to Trafalgar Square this evening for London Film Festival's outdoor screening London Moves Me with films on public transport! Expect nostalgic archive footage of 19th horse-drawn omnibuses along Piccadilly to speculative visions of the future ways that we will travel from A along to B.

Mapping Spitalfield

What is your memory of Spitalfields? Mapping Memories' first initiative One Line Only is calling for one liners that will track the memories of residents and visitors to E1.

Visit the Exhibition in Hanbury Hall, Hanbury Street, E1 from 23-25 October and post your One Line Only on the memory wall.

Arrived

Unwrapped. Tissue Paper. Nearly on a new wall.
(artist Shaun Sundholm)

LFA2010

London Festival of Architecture's site is now live. 8 months to go.

Square the Block

LSE and Contemporary Art Society commissioned sculptor Richard Wilson's architectural intervention, Square the Block. Shifting our perception of 'set in stone', the sculpture juts out of the corner of Kingsway and Sardinia Street.

Nash Ramblas

RIBA London is thinking up a new name for Nash Ramblas, the London Festival of Architecture project set to take place next June that will highlight the pathway from Regents to St James' Park. The festival events will explore Terry Farrell's scheme for the West End and celebrate John Nash's original masterplan.

We need a new name though. And Nash Ramble doesn't work. New Street 1825 doesn't say contemporary plans for the streetscape. West End Promenade creates an image of Edwardian ladies twirling parasols in the park (this isn't part of the festival plans). Nash's boulevard conjures up Paris.

Nashville?

Park Nights

Serpentine's Poetry Marathon
A two day poetry + art + music event this Saturday and Sunday, 17–18 October

Contributors include Nick Laird, Cerith Wyn Evans, Brian Eno, Gilbert & George

"The Poetry Marathon is the fourth in the series of Marathons staged in the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion each year. The first in the series, the Interview Marathon in 2006, involved interviews with leading figures in contemporary culture over 24 hours, conducted by Obrist and architect Rem Koolhaas. This was followed by the Experiment Marathon, which included 50 experiments by speakers across both arts and science, and the Manifesto Marathon in 2008".

I somehow always manage to miss the ingenious programming of the Park Night Serpentine sessions. Every year for the last four. Much the same as I am always under the duvet with flu on the day of the Boat Race which prevents me from yelling louder than the cox for Oxford.

20 x 200

After opening a pocket sized Lower East Side gallery, Jen Beckman started 20 x 200. Artworks can be purchased for 20, 50 or 200 dollars and new editions go online on Tuesdays and Wednesdays EST. PayPal is dangerous.

Meeting with the Royal Parks events team

Our contact carefully sipped his earl grey from an appropriate dainty china teacup.
The inscription:
God Save the Queen

Event: Stories unfold

Barbican's 20th Performance Storytelling Season.
Three nights presenting a new generation of storytellers. Curious about this ancient tradition. How to ignite a tale and capture an audience. I imagine a wide eyed performance, an oral history of urban legends meshed with folk music around a cozy fire. It will no doubt be far bigger and more expansive than my log fire expectations. Nick Cave has been listed as an inspiration for part of the program afterall.

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters

The ceilings are high in the new living room. So high*, your voice echoes across the hexagon shaped room. Design solutions to help bring the ceiling down would be greatly received. Bubble floor lamps?
*I might be able to peak at the rest of the solar system. Invitations to the Planetarium to be issued soon.

Tissue Paper book covers

By Jenny Grigg via SeaSaw Designs

EVENT: Donmar Warehouse

Life is a Dream by Pedro Calderon de la Barca in a new version by Helen Edmundson
8 October - 28 November 2009
About:
"To protect the country from the horrors prophesied, Segismundo is condemned for all eternity. Banished to a secret world high in the mountains and cut off from the sun, he can only dream of a life reversed: of palaces, empires, freedom and revenge".

Oh and the man from The Wire is in it.

Going to the new flat to measure and plan. Starting to get a little excited. As Tash said "It has a theatre en-suite". Have a lovely weekend.
Teatowel image via

Coffee beans

Kaffeine on Great Titchfield Street. One of several new Australian/Kiwi led coffee bars that together seem to form a antipodean reactionary alliance against generic coffee (i.e uninspired tepid coffee flavoured milk). Great Ormond Street's Espresso Room is also one for Bloomsbury based coffee fiends.
(image Charmaine Mok)

Launch of the Label

Sindiso Khumalo: "Handprinted tshirts based on a series of rambling sketches and designs inspired by the plethora of patterns, shapes and colours that exist on the streets of Hackney, East London". Tshirt titles include Sweaty Soweto, Ndebele Nina Simone and Air Morroco.
Final website construction in a few weeks..in the meantime.
(Yay Sindi!)

Sackler Centre

The Sackler Centre Tour from Victoria and Albert Museum on Vimeo.

Softroom's renovation of the V&A education wing. Timber wall-roof and concrete juxtaposed and smart design decisions throughout.
(I look a little gormless on this film as a member of the tour group but actually I was mesmerised).

Introducing..a low energy brick

Last year I was on the frenetic search for a pass to the opening of Frieze. Just the opening day. Not the pre-preview night. Never underestimate the art of the canape as well as the art of the fair.

A year on and I have become more preoccupied by construction innovation:

Bricks made by Calstar Products, require 80-90% less energy to make and the process generates 85% less carbon dioxide than normal bricks in the process, according to the company.

Should I worry?
(Frieze 15-18 October. Frieze Talks will be broadcasted on London's resonance 104.4Ffm arts radio).