Until June a retrospective of the architect known as the father of modern Architecture is being held at the Barbican, which according to my tutor is a
"truly atrocious space". Whilst trying my best to ignore the vulgar surroundings I observed his vast canon of work. I have nothing really to criticize about his actual buildings, not only because this would be blasphemous to any architect, but simply because they embody a theory that is still deeply engrained in the architecture of today. What struck me most poignantly was how his work encompasses so many different fields from poetry, writing, painting, photography through to furniture design. I love the idea that an architect must absorb themselves as much as possible in the culture and arts to understand the society that they are designing for.
"I am an acrobat of forms
creator of forms, player with forms.
Forms means to express all plastic emotion.
Form, expression and style of the mind."
- Le Corbusier
If you are familiar with my obsession for this amazing fruit, you will understand the exclamation mark in the title. I requested to paint these today, and was surprised that Allen (teacher) took notice of my suggestion. . . My composition is definitely improving and I think that I am generally moving in the right direction - perhaps it was simply a case of being more excited about what I was painting.
This is the RCA's work in progress show before the final graduation show in june. The Architects were all dealing with themes of Boom and Doom: tackling how to design for a new rather depressing world of limited space, deforestation, lack or resources, etc. There was some interesting work in the Art and Animation sections, although I could not easily understand their development, as there was very limited information available. It seems that I am consistently drawn to work that clearly shows a process, which I find to be more accessible - at the RCA; this seems to occur most frequently in the work of the architecture students.
