Month: June 2016

This May saw Copenhagen as the location for the first ever international trip for RIBA Patrons and American Friends of the British Architectural Library.

Following a warm welcome at the British Ambassador’s newly renovated residency, the group saw and experienced the city’s architectural (and culinary!) highlights.  The group had personal tours of contemporary award-winning buildings, with their architects, such as Schmidt Hammer Lassen’s Black Diamond extension of the Royal Danish Library; Henning Larsen’s beautiful intervention in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek; BIG’s ski slope atop a waste to energy plant and later a wonderful dinner in the Maritime Museum, Helsingor; and 3xN’s Bella Sky and Aquarium visit – not least the breath-taking roof-top tour. They also experienced the forerunners of great Danish design visiting Arne Jacobsens’s Bellevue and more with his grandson Tobias; as well as Finn Juhl’s house neighbouring the Zaha Hadid extension at Ordrupgaarde and later Soren Varming’s stunning mid-century jewel.

A huge thanks to all our Danish hosts for making the trip so special.

Plans are afoot for the next international trip.  Please get in touch if you are interested in hearing more.

RIBA with Arper UK is delighted to invite all American Friends to a celebratory event for all 2016 RIBA National Award winners on Wednesday 13 July at the Serpentine Galleries Pavilion, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). BIG’s vision is an ‘unzipped wall’ that is transformed from straight line to three-dimensional space, creating a dramatic structure that by day houses a café and free family activities and by night becomes a space for the Serpentine’s acclaimed Park Nights programme of performative works by artists, writers and musicians.

This year, and in tandem with the 16th Pavilion in 2016, the Serpentine Galleries has expanded its internationally acclaimed programme of exhibiting architecture in a built form by commissioning four architects to each design a 25sqm Summer House. The four Summer Houses are inspired by the nearby Queen Caroline’s Temple, a classical style summer house, built in 1734 and a stone’s throw from the Serpentine Gallery. In line with the criteria for the selection of the Pavilion architect, each architect chosen by the Serpentine has yet to build a permanent building in England.

The Serpentine Pavilion, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), is an ‘unzipped wall’ that is transformed from straight line to three-dimensional space, creating a dramatic structure that by day houses a café and free family activities and by night becomes a space for the Serpentine’s acclaimed Park Nights programme of performative works by artists, writers and musicians. The four Summer Houses include Kunlé Adeyemi’s Summer House which is an inverse replica of Queen Caroline’s Temple – a tribute to its robust form, space and material, recomposed into a new sculptural object. Barkow Leibinger were inspired by another, now extinct, 18th Century pavilion also designed by William Kent, which rotated and offered 360 degree views of the Park. Yona Friedman’s Summer House takes the form of a modular structure that can be assembled and disassembled in different formations and builds upon the architect’s pioneering project La Ville Spatiale (Spatial City) begun in the late 1950s. Asif Khan’s design is inspired by the fact that Queen Caroline’s Temple was positioned in a way that would allow it to catch the sunlight from The Serpentine lake.

There will be a Champagne Taittinger reception and speeches from RIBA President, Jane Duncan, RIBA Awards Group Chair, Philip Gumuchdjian and BIG Senior Project Manager, Ziad Shehab.

If you are able to attend, please do RSVP to Patrons@RIBA.org.