This June, American Friends and Patrons are invited to our Summer Party in Walmer Yard, Notting Hill. Set around an open courtyard, the site includes four interlocking houses, totalling over 9,000 square feet. This unique project is a collaboration between developer and founder of Baylight Properties, Crispin Kelly, and architect and RIBA Honorary Fellow, Peter Salter, who will both host us for the evening with Champagne Taittinger sponsoring the drinks reception.
For more information or to RSVP please contact Flora Woodruff on +44 (0)20 7307 3809 or Patrons@riba.org.
American Friends are invited to join us for a drinks reception in a stunning Denys Lasdun building overlooking Green Park and Spencer House on Wednesday 17th May 2017.
The block, built on the site of two Georgian houses destroyed during the war, is considered to be Lasdun’s first mature work and it won a RIBA London award in 1960. The block plays with height, with split levels and different ceiling heights throughout. In more recent times, two of the luxury apartments have become one stunning home to a well-known British Entrepreneur and patron of the arts.
We are delighted to invite you to drinks with the owners and their architect Jamie Fobert, to learn more about this project.
For more information or to RSVP, please contact Flora Woodruff on +44 (0)20 7307 3809 or Patrons@riba.org
American Friends are invited to join us for a exploration of London’s De Beauvoir Town on the afternoon of Wednesday 26th April 2017. Between Islington and Dalston, in the south-west corner of Hackney, De Beauvoir Town is something of a haven for artists and designers. You are invited to join us for an afternoon exploring this conservation area, we’ll visit two stunning architect designed homes, one a new build, the other a transformed Victorian property. We’ll also meet the ceramicist Kate Malone in her studio.
Please RSVP 020 7307 3701 or email Patrons@riba.org
Kate Malone, Ceramic Studio
Kate Malone is one of Britain’s most well-known ceramicists.
Her work is often inspired by exotic travels, the growth patterns and ripeness of nature. Using strong colours and sumptuous crystalline glazes, her work communicates a ‘feel good factor’ through optimistic cladding of her forms with abundant sculptural details. 10,000 hand-glazed, hand-fired tiles by Kate form the stunning cladding of EPR’s 24 Saville Row.
A graduate of the Royal College of Art and a judge on BBC’s and a judge on BBC’s Great Pottery Throw Down she will open the doors to her London studio for us.
Sunken House
Built in 2007, Sunken House is the home of Ed Reeve, architectural and luxury brand photographer. Designed in collaboration with David Adjaye the house sits on a former infill site in the heart of a conservation area. A sold timber load-bearing superstructure offers improved thermal and acoustic performance and a reduced carbon footprint. Natural and artificial lighting, picture windows and thick interior doors help to create both a frame to and sanctuary from the world outside.
Excavated to basement level the result is a three storey family home that has been inspired by the Victorian villas and workshops that surround it. Prefabricated laminated timber panels have lent itself to the moniker “Ed’s Shed”.
Completed earlier this year, De Beauvoir House is a unique remodel and two storey extension of a Victorian, semi-detached family home. The client brief was to harmonise the layout of the internal spaces, making them work for their growing family’s needs. Architects Cousins and Cousins solution was a rear extension, a lightweight structural glulam timber insertion which frames a series of newly created modern spaces connected via a bespoke steel staircase.
We are very pleased to announce the dates and locations for the US lecture tour, ‘Make thy castles high and fair’: Medieval Castles to Modern Fantasies, which Dr Jonathan Foyle will be giving on behalf of AFBAL for the New England Historic Genealogical Society and the Royal Oak Foundation this April.
Don’t forget to use our co-sponsor code 17SRIBA for discounted tickets at $30 each.
Dr Jonathan Foyle Biography:
Dr Jonathan Foyle was a Curator of Historic Buildings at Hampton Court for eight years, and took his PhD on reconstructing Wolsey’s palace prior to Henry VIII’s adoption of it. Having headed the British branch of the New York-based World Monuments Fund for eight years at projects including Coventry and St Paul’s Cathedrals, Stowe House and Hawksmoor’s St George’s Church in Bloomsbury, he is now an author, presenter and consultant. Since 2012 he has been a frequent writer for the Financial Times on issues of architecture, history and craft, and is currently completing his fourth cathedral monograph: Canterbury, Lincoln, Lichfield- now Peterborough. A presenter of numerous series on UK and US television, including BBC’s 15-part ‘Climbing Great Buildings’ – he co-presents a new series, ‘Restoration of the Year’ on Channel 4 this spring. He lives in an old house in Somerset, near Bath.
Dr Jonathan Foyle
‘Make thy castles high and fair’: Medieval Castles to Modern Fantasies:
What is a ‘castle’? While the term is now often applied to a stately home to imply monumental scale or status, its use originally indicated a fortified military residence. But to what extent were castles defensible and against whom? What does the use of the “castle” style mean in architecture when it is applied to churches—such as the western block of Lincoln Cathedral—or civic buildings? If Cardinal Wolsey was never a warrior, why does Hampton Court (1515-28) look like a castle, complete with a moat? Architectural historian Dr. Jonathan Foyle will explore the shifting associations in castle design and purpose over the last thousand years using images from the Royal Institute of British Architects’ extensive collection. He will demonstrate how the religious and political purposes of buildings later changed to become representational of political authority—such as the early medieval castle Bodiam in Sussex (a National Trust property). He will explain how Britain’s castles gave way to palatial residences as cultural values changed during the 16th and 17th century. He will also show how castles were associated with romantic rather than defensible ideals reflected in Georgian and Victorian designs—such as Penrhyn Castle, Wales—and inform our modern preconception today.
Victorian opulence, hidden Mackintosh, a Brutalist utopia and award-winning contemporary architecture: we invite you to join us on this eye-opening tour exclusively for Patrons of Architecture and American Patrons of the British Architectural Library from Wednesday 14th to Friday 16th June 2017.
The costs are £990 per person (+£180 single person supplement) including accommodation, meals, local transport and all costs associated with the itinerary. Transport to and from Glasgow is not included.
In addition, we ask participants to give a donation of £500 per person to support the work of RIBA’s British Architectural Library (charity no. 210566)
To whet your appetite, the schedule will include:
Special access to St Peter’s Seminary, the defining work of Gillespie, Kidd & Coia. Completed in 1966 and abandoned in the 1980s, its crumbling and defaced structure is being reclaimed as a dramatic setting for public art, performance, learning and debate by NVA.
A hard-hat tour of ‘The Mack’, the Glasgow School of Art building designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1909 and devastated by fire in 2014. It is a unique moment to see the skeleton of the gutted library and hear the myriad questions the restoration project presents.
A personal invitation to Windyhill, one of only two homes designed by Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald and the only one still in private hands. Immaculately restored, it reflects the full range of influences on Mackintosh’s work, from Japanese art to early European modernism.
A boat trip along the Clyde, home to ambitious international architecture, with buildings by Hadid, Foster and Chipperfield, as well as the Stirling Prize-shortlisted City of Glasgow College by Michael Laird Architects and Reiach and Hall Architects.
An Evening Reception to meet and celebrate those shaping Glasgow’s reputation as a world-leading architectural destination, from visionary commissioners to the architects and designers themselves.
Two nights’ accommodation in a superior room at the five-star Blythswood Square, a grand example of Regency architecture now home to a fine collection of Scottish paintings and plenty of Harris Tweed.
To register your interest in Destination Glasgow! or for more information on the Patrons of Architecture and American Patrons of the British Architectural Library please contact Flora Woodruff on +44 (0)20 7307 3701 or patrons@riba.org or info@afbal.org
American Friends are invited to join a tour of DSDHA’s RIBA Award-winning Covert House on Wednesday 15th March 2017. The house is comprised of two interlocked cubes, semi-underground with mirror reveals to minimise its presence in a conservation area.
We are then invited to a private apartment remodelled by Woollacott Gilmartin Architects to showcase post-war British and Brazilian art and furniture as well as beautiful views over Green Park.
For more information or to RSVP please contact Flora Woodruff on +44 (0)20 7307 3809 or Patrons@riba.org.
The Yale Bulldog intern scheme was established in 2005 in collaboration with Yale University in Connecticut. The scheme normally admits two interns for two months in the summer – one to work at 66 Portland Place working with Library Education department and one at the Drawings & Archives collection held in RIBA’s architectural partnership with the V&A.
This summer Anna Rose Canzano joined members of the RIBA curatorial team and this is her story…
My Experience at the British Architectural Library
My name is Anna Rose Canzano and I am a junior majoring in architecture at Yale University. This summer I had the opportunity to join the RIBA Drawings and Archives Collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum for two months as an intern. My main project was to organize, catalogue, and rehouse the drawings for the Barbican Estate, an important example of post-war British urban planning designed by Chamberlin Powell & Bon. Because I was working with such an extensive collection of drawings on one specific architectural project, I began by researching the Barbican at the British Architectural Library itself. I then sorted through the portfolios of drawings and came up with a system to organize them based on the type of drawing and the content of the drawing; i.e. whether it depicted Barbican housing, or the Barbican Arts Centre theater, concert hall or art gallery. The drawings ranged from early sketches from the 1950s to ones from nearly 20 years later, and the process of going through the drawings offered me important insight to the design process. With my background in design and my experience with architectural drawings, the materials that I worked with on a daily basis constantly fascinated me, from technical drawings to painted perspective visualizations.
During my internship, I gained knowledge of archival practices, and the process of architectural research. I also was exposed to museum practices and curatorial work. I found the project extremely rewarding because during my time in London I was able to visit the Barbican in person. This gave me a better understanding of the project, and it also contributed to my own developing academic interest in urban studies, specifically post-war housing. Additionally, the internship introduced me to alternative career paths that include a passion for architecture, even if one is not an architect. I have gained a stronger historical interest in architecture, which I will continue to explore through my academic choices. I am proud to have done valuable work in the collection, and now researchers can now access materials previously not known to the public.
American Friends are invited to join an afternoon of award-winning residential architecture in West London on Thursday 19th January 2017. Coffey Architects use warm oak and clever glazing to bring light to their Modern Mews in Bayswater. Henning Stummel Architects’ Tin House is a composition of six metal-clad pavilions around a secluded courtyard in Shepherds Bush. We are invited to meet the architects and tour these inventive designs, both 2016 RIBA London Award winners.
For more information or to RSVP please contact Flora Woodruff on +44 (0)20 7307 3809 or Patrons@riba.org.
This Christmas, American Friends and Patrons are invited to an 1860s house on Hyde Park, the former home of The Royal Society of Literature with a varied and interesting history. Architect Thomas Croft and interior designer Francis Sultana have remodelled the house into a modern family home which includes specially commissioned furniture by Mattia Bonetti, Fredrikson Stallard and others.
For more information or to RSVP please contact Flora Woodruff on +44 (0)20 7307 3809 or Patrons@riba.org.
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 12th 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.
A selection of images from our visit to Washington DC in October 2016
