Category: Events

The American Friends hosted a wonderful evening with Lord Palumbo speaking about his life in architecture at the stunning Sir Edwin Lutyens-designed the British Ambassador’s Residence in Washington DC on October 12^th 2016.

Hosted by Sir Kim and Lady Darroch and moderated by Abraham Thomas, Lord Palumbo dazzled guests with his talk which included descriptions of architectural projects and achievements along with reminiscing about relationships with such architectural titans as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Berthold Lubetkin, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier.

This presentation precedes RIBA’s Spring 2017 exhibition at the Architecture Gallery at 66 Portland Place, which will focus on the Mansion House Square scheme. Commissioned by Lord Palumbo in the early 1960s, Mies van der Rohe’s proposal for a 19-storey office building, public square and underground shopping centre in a conservation area of the City led to years of heated debate and a major planning inquiry in the 1980s. With the rejection of Mies’s tower in 1985, Palumbo commissioned James Stirling Michael Wilford and Associates to design an alternative scheme for the site, the postmodern No. 1 Poultry, which continues to occupy the site today.

The American Friends of the British Architectural Library would like to thank His Excellency, Sir Kim Darroch CMG, KCMG, Lady Darroch, Ms Amanda Downes, Lord Palumbo, Mr Abraham Thomas and Mrs Claire Cox for their incredible assistance with this event – we are very grateful.

Please join as a member if you don’t want to miss out on future events like this.

American Friends are invited to join the Patrons for Architecture for Artists: The Hammersmith Studios on Thursday 10 November 2016. Join architect MJ Long and artists Peter Blake, Paul Huxley and Ben Johnson for a tour of the Hammersmith Studios. In the early 90s, architectural artist Ben Johnson bought a defunct builder’s yard with fellow artists Paul Huxley and Peter Blake. With different priorities, budgets and styles of working, the artists commissioned the architect MJ Long to transform a once industrial space into three artist’s studios. Long described the process as a “magical mystery tour” and will share her experience of finding a solution for all three.

PETER BLAKE

Peter Blake was born in Kent in 1935. He initially studied at Gravesend Technical College, before completing a period of national service in the Royal Air Force. He went on to study at the Royal College of Art and later won the Leverhulme Research Award to study popular art throughout Europe. Blake is a pioneer of Pop Art, his style evolving from classical naturalistic oils to collaged works featuring images of movie stars and musicians.

PAUL HUXLEY

Paul Huxley studied at Harrow School of Art and later at the Royal Academy Schools. He has participated in many group and solo

exhibitions, both nationally and internationally. From painting to sculpture and ceramics, Huxley’s works are characterised by geometric and architectural shapes and bright hues. He taught at the Royal College of Art from 1976, becoming Professor of Painting there from 1986 until 1998, when he was appointed Professor Emeritus. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1987 and was Treasurer of the Royal Academy from 2000 – 2014.

BEN JOHNSON

Ben Johnson was born in Wales, in 1946. He studied at the Royal College of Art and has lived and worked in London since 1965. Perhaps best known for his large-scale, intricately detailed cityscape paintings of Hong Kong, Zürich, Jerusalem, Liverpool and London, Johnson has exhibited in galleries and museums across the world, as well as with Norman Foster at the first Venice Architecture Biennale in 1991 and again in 2012. Johnson is an Honorary Fellow of the RIBA, recognised for his contribution to the public’s understanding of contemporary architecture.

MJ LONG

MJ Long was born in the USA in 1939, and received her MArch from Yale in 1964. She moved to the UK in 1965, becoming director of Colin St John Wilson and later founder of Long & Kentish. Long has worked on a variety of projects from private homes to public spaces including the British Library, Durlston Castle in Swanage and the new wing of Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, as well as a number of university buildings, restaurants and conversions.

Peter Blake

Paul Huxley

Ben Johnson

MJ Long

To attend or for more details, please contact Flora Woodruff on +44 (0)20 7307 3809 or Patrons@riba.org.

American Friends and Patrons are invited to join a full day on Wednesday 26th October 2016 as we explore the Suffolk countryside and three private houses that respond to their surrounds in remarkably different ways.

Walk Barn Farm

Sitting in a wide open pasture surrounded by Suffolk heathland, Walk Barn Farm has been compared to a Frank Lloyd Wright prairie house. Three wings project out in to the landscape with a raised terrace and decked areas nestled between them. Black timber cladding, galvanised steel Crittal windows and polished concrete floors are all materials in keeping with agricultural buildings, but are here employed with a sensitivity that is unmistakably domestic. Designed by Charles Barclay Architects, Walk Barn Farm was awarded a 2013 RIBA Regional Award.

Heveningham Hall

Heveningham Hall is one of the grandest Georgian country homes. Designed and built by Sir Robert Taylor in 1778 around an earlier building of 1714, it was completed a couple of years’ later by James Wyatt, who also designed the interiors. The grounds of just over 200 hectares include landscaping by Capability Brown and further significant buildings such as the Orangery, Temple and icehouse. The present owners have undertaken an extensive programme of restoration. They invite us for lunch and a rare glimpse inside the Hall.

Marsh Hill

Marsh Hill was designed by the RIBA Award-winning practice Mole Architects. Described by Elle Decoration as making buildings that are ‘not just green but gorgeous’, Marsh Hill exemplifies their commitment to cutting-edge sustainability and distinctive design. A twisting zinc roof folds up to contain the master bedroom and a linear plan makes the most of stupendous views over the tidal salt marshes and the River Alde. The owners and the architect invite us to hear how this remarkable home came to be.

As for logistics, we will depart promptly at 7.30am by private coach from RIBA, 76 Portland Place, London W1B 1NT and will return around 7.30pm. The journey takes a little over three hours each way.

There will be a cost of £50 per person to cover transportation and refreshments.

For more information and to book your place, please contact the Development Office on 0207 307 3809 or Patrons@riba.org.

The Magnetic North presents The Prospect Of Skelmersdale a special live performance at RIBA on Tuesday 9th August 2016.

American Friends are welcome to join us for a one off special event with The Magnetic North performing with a full band line up (including strings and woodwind) and the premier screening of their new short film, with appearances from very special guests from the architecture and literary world.

The band’s new album The Prospect Of Skelmersdale explores themes of utopian dreams, architecture, new towns, people and place. In partnership with the RIBA and co-curated with @vine_collective/Third Nature the event will complement the themes of the current exhibition At Home in Britain – Designing the House of Tomorrow.

Please click here for more information and tickets.

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.

We would like to invite all American Friends to join us on Wednesday 22^nd June for the Patrons Summer Party 2016. This year, we are congregating at the National Theatre for a tour of the recent renovations with Stirling-prize winning architects Haworth Tompkins and a talk on the notable holding of the Lasdun Archive in the RIBA Collections given by distinguished Denys Lasdun specialist, Dr Barnabas Calder. Sir John Tusa will be hosting this event which promises to be wonderful evening of theatre and architecture in the seminal, post-war modernist building that is the National Theatre.

For more on Denys Lasdun, please click here for this inspirational architect’s fact sheet.

We have just returned from a marvellous trip accompanying Abraham Thomas’s lecture tour, The Grand(er) Tour: Architectural Imagination Beyond the Classical World, with the Royal Oak Foundation. It was wonderful to meet old friends and new in New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Boston and Chicago. Each city was very welcoming and we were spoiled with the weather – and look forward to coming back soon!

A huge thanks to the ladies of the Royal Oak Foundation for organizing an incredible tour and to Abraham for his fascinating lectures on the influence on architecture from places outside the Greco-Roman sites and sights of the traditional Grand Tour. For centuries, architects have used travels to fuel their cultural and artistic education but starting in the 19th century architects often travelled further afield, venturing to regions such as Southern Spain, the Middle East, Japan, China and India, seeking inspirational sources from Ancient Egypt or the Islamic world. Abraham spoke fluently of architecture by the likes of Owen Jones, Edwin Lutyens, Charles Voysey, William Burges and Louis Khan and the influence that their Grand(er) Tours had on their oeuvre.

Please see below for a few highlights from this wonderful trip…

Save the dates for 18 to 21 May 2016 as we have an architectural tour exclusively arranged for Patrons of Architecture and American Patrons of the British Architectural Library to Copenhagen.

Although subject to change, the schedule is as follows:

DAY ONE
WELCOME TO COPENHAGEN!
We check into Hotel Nimb, an exquisite Moorish folly in the Tivoli pleasure gardens, now the city’s most luxurious boutique hotel. Our first day introduces us to the city with a canal tour of the historic sites. That evening, we are officially welcomed by the British Ambassador at a party in our honour, introducing us to the movers and shakers of the Danish design scene. We head for dinner at one of the city’s celebrated restaurants then back to Nimb for our first night’s sleep.

DAY TWO
MODERN CITY
On our second day, we visit two contemporary additions to historic cultural buildings with their architects: Henning Larsen’s ‘building within a building’ at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek and Schmidt Hammer Lassen’s Black Diamond extension to the Royal Library. We will be hosted for lunch by Danish design firm Louis Poulsen before a hard-hat tour of Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)’s latest Copenhagen landmark: a waste-to-energy plant complete with public ski slope. That evening, we are free to explore New Nordic Cuisine or head to Henning Larsen’s waterside Opera House for an evening performance. We sleep at Nimb.

DAY THREE
ESCAPE THE CITY
We begin day three by celebrating Arne Jacobsen, arguably the most famous name in Danish design. In the company of Tobias Jacobsen, the architect’s grandson, we visit the SAS Hotel and National Bank before heading up the coast to Bellevue, Jacobsen’s beach resort a few miles north of the city. We stop at Kokkedal Castle, a country retreat of 1746, now a luxury hotel. We spend the afternoon here for lunch and to enjoy the grounds or relax in the spa. The evening begins with a tour of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, where the landscaped galleries overlook the narrow water to Sweden. After a sunset drink here, we travel to Helsingor for dinner at BIG’s Maritime Museum. This bold design is embedded in a former dry dock in the shadow of Hamlet’s castle. We will meet those who delivered a design and engineering miracle, helping regenerate an abandoned industrial site. We sleep nearby at Kokkedal.

DAY FOUR
DESIGNING THE FUTURE
Our final day starts with another mid-century classic: the Varming House. Jørgen Varming’s grandson Søren will show us domestic innovations that exemplify the spirit behind Steensen Varming’s mechanical engineering, not least the Sydney Opera House. Back in Copenhagen, we explore the future of Danish architecture: first at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, where the Head of Architecture will introduce us to the students as they prepare their final projects for presentation; then we visit Ørestad, a developing city district. From the Sky Bar on the 23rd floor of 3XN’s Bella Sky Hotel, we meet those shaping the new town concept and view the distinctive urban plan and architecture. From here it is a short drive to the airport or transfer back to the city for those who wish to extend their trip.

For more information and pricing, please get in touch with us on patrons@riba.org.

We would like to invite all American Friends to join us for a Patrons tour of The Flint House at Waddesdon Manor on Thursday 21^st April in Buckinghamshire.

Lord Rothschild asked practice Skene Catling de la Peña to design a home on his estate at Waddesdon Manor. Announced by Channel 4 as the winner of the RIBA House of the Year 2015, the Flint House is a reaction to the fields, churned up into great clods and scattered with the debris of flint. As two adjacent examples of country-house living, the Flint House makes an intriguing contrast to the Manor which we will also see on our visit.

Please get in touch for more information and to register.