AARCHITECTURE ISSUE 27
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NEWS FROM THE ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION
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To be an active participant in our unique and idiosyncratic institution is to make a decision regarding the extent to which you choose to accept a rare educational freedom: the freedom to effect a democracy and engage in discussing themes that stretch beyond the confines of any particular studio. As members of this small community, we are fundamentally tasked with being the prime movers of our immediate environment, rigorously questioning its potency and relevance, shaping its composition and honing its direction as time progresses. There are some individual themes that have been resolutely consistent throughout the history of the Architectural Association and will remain so as the national environment in which it exists continues to transition into a new era of increased institutional oversight, personal surveillance and tighter border controls. However, there are others regarding the way in which our association proceeds that remain firmly in the hands of the occupants of these buildings on Bedford Square. As the fundamental architects of our own institution, AA students incontrovertibly remain the instigators of change and the authors of the themes we identify and preserve as a school. The existence of the association in its present state is predicated on this recognition and establishment of distinct themes; in the agendas and extended briefs of each unit and course throughout the school, in the direction in which the institution is moving as a whole and in how
we choose to interact with the world beyond the walls of our premises on Bedford Square. Such themes, in their demarcation of a territory and a position, inevitably generate opposition. However, it is a vexing truth that such contraposition rarely and fleetingly finds its manifestation in direct engagement. On occasion, if the wind is blowing in the right direction and the conditions are just right, an adversarial debate has been known to occur between unit masters, giving a brief insight into true, contrasting opinions and a mutual expression of commitment to a given position in a public forum. Such instances are nevertheless few and far between, yet they are precisely the debates that have for so long ensured that our association continues to refresh itself, to question its values and redress its themes in order maximise the freedom of its own internal democracy. As a student at the AA, participation in that essential, active process is reliant on an ability to identify those themes and to take a position on them. Democracy, lest we forget, is conditional on the notion of opposition. As members of the Architectural Association, the themes that govern our experiences of this institution must be interrogated through open, active debate, moving beyond a mere acceptance of fact to decide how we wish to operate, and what sort of educational environment we intend to maintain. 3
Facts can be conjured away, but decision is political.
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– The Invisible Committee, The Coming Insurrection
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In this issue, we question how it is that we begin to identify and define a theme, moving beyond the facts to establish a position or response to a current state of affairs. In Paffard KeatingeClay’s piece: ‘Stonehenge: What was it?’ he sets forward an alternative architectural position and defiant archaeological theory for the historic and mysterious site at Stonehenge. Here, Keatinge-Clay interprets the facts through his own, carefully crafted and personal filter to decide upon a given individual position on which he then elaborates with great investigative gumption. AArchitecture, in its transition from a tutorled newsletter to a student-operated journal is now able function as a platform to display content that generates debate and inherently questions the themes that we believe to be the essential components of our association and the global environment in which it exists. As this publication moves forward into a period of new editorship, we intend to continue to interrogate our values, stimulate active participation in informed, oppositional debate and encourage the members of this community to examine our collective ideals. Our intention and prerogative as a studentled, free publication is to not only participate in
collective discussion and conversation, but also to grant contributors the right to dauntlessly, actively and openly challenge the themes they identify in opposition to their ideals and not to accept anything without question – such is the nature of our rare freedom. As such, going forward we will begin to focus on incorporating more content concerning current events through critical reviews of exhibitions and architectural news and a desire to engage directly with the world and the architectural profession beyond the threshold of 36 Bedford Square. Thomas Gillard, Konstantilenia Koulouri, Moad Musbahi and Rory Sherlock, AArchitecture Editors
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AARCHITECTURE ISSUE 27
{THEME}
NEWS FROM THE ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION
Contents Formatting, Auto formatting, Styles and Identity ..................................................................... 8 Variations on a Curated Theme................................. 16 Theme is Like a Group of Humans ......................... 22 An Expanded take on Media Practices .................. 26 This is Not a Love Song .............................................. 32 The Supreme Achievement, A Reflection ............... 36 Stonehenge: What Was It? ......................................... 44 Comfort Zone .............................................................. 58 AA Personalities No 3: W T W Ching...................... 60 Digital Craftsmanship, The AA_Aarhus Visiting School............................... 66 {Theme}
New From AA Publications & Bedford Press ...... 70 AA Bookshop’s Recommended Reading ................ 76 AA News ........................................................................ 79 AA Notices .................................................................... 87 Issue 28: Boundary..................................................... 89
FORMATTING, AUTO FORMATTING, STYLES AND IDENTITY — Alex Butterworth
Alex Butterworth, AA Diploma student, formats letters into drawings. A theme is a collection of reusable settings that can be applied to all written documents. The theme is more than a set of rules for font, colour and spacing, but ensures the author’s consistent graphic identity. The following pages question whether letters can escape the theme to become formal entities in their own right. The letter becomes an abstract form, organised by shape rather than meaning. http://pr2015.aaschool.ac.uk/dip-14/alex.butterworth
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VARIATIONS ON A CURATED THEME – A WALK THROUGH TIME AND INTO ART — Zeina Derry and Matthew Turner
Curatorial roles are explicitly thematic, they are thematic orchestrations that construe and impart meaning upon a collection of art and the space in which they are exhibited, Zeina Derry and Matthew Turner show how such orchestrations produce intended readings and experiences. www.ribaj.com/intelligence/dissertation-medalcommendation-zeina-al-derry
Objective Time A dogmatic time prevails at MOMA, a chronological narrative imposed by its curators, resulting in a rigid teleological understanding of art that rejects all forms of freely associative interpretation. This leads to an objective, academic reading devoid of any real personal experience. This curatorial preoccupation with objective historical time does not comment on social/class relations which might have stayed the same or regressed when the artworks were produced. This orchestration holds the belief that history is an automatic development in time and human beings are not the creators of their own spatial series of events. As such, experiencing art becomes an
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Three Times – Three Experiences What is the nature of art experience? How does the curation of the recent Frieze Masters Art Fair influence the individual’s relationship with artworks and understanding of time? Particularly when juxtaposed against classical displays of permanent art collections, such as the ones in Tate Modern and MOMA? Beyond the singular meaning of a painting or a sculpture lies the significance of the space between the artworks. This space is under the orchestration of the curator and the assessment of its effect on our perception of time in relation to the displayed artworks will help us better comprehend our current experiences of art and how some are more effective and engaging than others.
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objective viewing experience seen through the spectacle of scientific time. This system of meaning has its roots in the obsession with the ordered cataloguing introduced by industrialisation and the enlightenment to exert control over nature. It is a vain attempt to order the inherently chaotic and fluctuating condition of nature, which erodes its beauty in the process. Human artistic production is similar in terms of its rebellion against any controlled order that could cause loss of their meanings. This model does not inspire the imaginative associations created by the individual, which other models of curating do. This methodology is an illusion of pure time that is no longer relevant in light of current technological advances, which have manipulated time and space. Thus, it is hard to understand its relevance to art further than a relic of the past. Outside of Time In contrast to this, the thematic orchestration of art knowledge in Tate Modern’s display of its permanent collection allows the viewer’s mind to be submerged in timelessness. This is due to the reduced curatorial control as a direct result of ordering the artists by name and grouping their works under inclusive thematic atmospheres, which allow us to step outside of scientific time. This is achieved by dedicating rooms to single themes or single artists, like the Rothko room: dimly lit in a curatorial singular timelessness specific to one artist. We approach this eddy from
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Paul Nash, Landscape from a Dream, 1936–38 © Tate
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the flux of the outer rooms, which contain multiple artists from different eras. The Rothko rooms are allowed to exist as a retreat from these temporal/ historical circumstances. Submerged in a static timelessness with the artist, the understanding comes from a very personal relationship with time.
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Within Time The juxtaposition of ancient and modern art dealers in the Frieze Masters layout combats this by immersing the viewer in time. It is a sense of time that is less controlled and develops individually as one wanders into the exhibition; a time morphed by bodily experience that brings different juxtapositions of art meanings together. Similar to a Natural History Museum, it brings together many different representations of time through art: distant pasts, to the present and perhaps even radical futures. The combination of these complex timeframes means that art is constantly pulled in and out of its context, resulting in a constant instability in their meaning and leaving the potential for new meanings always open. This flattening of art historical time divorces art from its socio-political reality and frees it from the rigid constraints found in the MOMA model. As such, the frieze model gives the art new ground to be appreciated away from the consumerist media-driven world of some contemporary art examples. This allows for an experience divorced from the baggage of being part of the complicated controlled debates that surround contemporary
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art and empowers us to become the creators of our own spatial experience. The dialogue here is accessible, time-based and everyone has an intuitive understanding of it. Our understanding of art more often than not comes from the media instead of a direct experience with the art itself. The temporal tension created in the Art Fair by conflicting past with present reintroduces the bodily experience of looking at art and counters the conventional media’s trivialisation of the body and flattening of meaning. Both, the curatorial strategy and the media, remain guilty of cutting up time. In this case, however, this type of non-linear time is projected onto the continuous linear narrative of the exhibition’s map, which creates an immediate picturesque bodily experience. It could be suggested that the exhibition itself is a quasi-artwork: an abstract map of art history instead of an exact tracing. This means that our wanderings around the exhibition are not actual but metaphorical; travelling outside linear politicised time and into art. The map here is the territory itself, where time and the interaction of variously placed artworks in relation to each other can be whatever we want them to be.
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THEME IS LIKE A GROUP OF HUMANS — Louisa Wong
Louisa Wong, AA Foundation, considers theme as a human connection www.aaschool.ac.uk/foundation
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Theme is like a group of humans. We vary and may seem worlds apart but underlying it all is something that runs the same. A common cause, a similar pain, shared joy, or just the fact that all blood runs red within us all. Take this away, this theme, and everything falls apart; personal vendettas and agendas become the focal point. Anything can be the theme, even the leaders of movements, a driving force. Open your eyes and ears and notice: once the leader is removed, everything just ceases to be, the people get confused. All that pent up emotion, utilised by the driving force, now gone, searches for something else to root for and violence and chaos sweeps throughout. In a way, you could see theme as a leash for human emotions, a police for humanity. In music, it brings a connection through everything, keeping it anchored down to a foundation. A dance would have lilting notes, mimicking high kicks or twirls and spins. The notes could be flying in all directions with different timbres but the theme of the dance pulls everything together to have one coherent style. It brings joy and understanding to all who pay attention. Ballads and light songs, bring smiles to all who listen, they can feel the heart and soul of the composer shining through the music. It carries the message through, the theme, the intentions of the composer; making people feel. We all crave to belong or connect to something. Everyone wants to feel like they are needed. That is why theme is so important. It is something we can
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talk about, something we understand and the selfvalidation coming from confidence of knowledge and exchanging of ideas with like or opposingminded people. That common cause or similar pain helps people feel less disconnected and even heals people. The support groups for people with similar pain or understanding, speaks to people, touches people. The world may impress on them the theme of victim but they want to be known by the theme of survivor and fighter, the themes of strength; the right to feel no shame and guilt for what happened. The theme of addicts as well, crippling in nature but they struggle to be known as fighters. However, the theme of a story or poem is the most common understanding of the word. Literature students can cite passages and quotes from numerous stories and stanzas and write essays proving and disproving themes. Without them, stories would be senseless, leaving us with a feeling of dissatisfaction. A story that provokes thought and invokes emotions does its job best when people understand what questions to ask. Even the most confusing storylines have a theme. Imagine for a moment, a themeless story is like a delirious person, each thought and action unconnected to the other. It gets confusing to the point of frustrating and the story is never finished. Theme to me is a connection that we as humans strive for, a permission to be creative while still being anchored; relatable to everyone else. We can go off on a tangent in ideas, beliefs or actions but we are never far from each other because we are
{Theme}
all humans, the blood running red and hot in our veins. So many of us try to disassociate ourselves from the global enemies, trying our best to prove our disassociation, but the thread that connects us all together prevents us from turning completely from ourselves. To turn against one of us is to turn against ourselves, because what we hate in others is present in ourselves, just in varying degrees. That is our theme, the theme of humanity. We connect and people may try to argue it but to someone, somewhere, that person’s actions resonate deeply within them and they feel the connection, feel the crushing weight of loneliness lessen. That is what is beautiful about that one word, ‘theme’, to me. It can mean a myriad of things, of understandings, but fundamentally, it is a word humans created. The proof of our need for connection, communication, coherence, and most of all, understanding. As John Donne put it perfectly in his poem ‘No Man is an Island’: No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
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AN EXPANDED TAKE ON MEDIA PRACTICES — Mark Campbell
The new MPhil in Media Practices launches in the coming academic year. Director Mark Campbell explains how the course will push students to test the architectural through contemporary media practice. www.aaschool.ac.uk/mediapractice
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The MPhil in Media Practices is scheduled to launch in 2015–16. The course aims to look beyond conventional modes of making and understanding architecture to focus on other media-based practices, such as photography, film, documentary and sound recording. While writing, drawing and talking – the tenets of architectural education – are still fundamental, the course is premised on the possibility of exploring what might arise through the use of static and time-based media practices as vehicles for considering the discipline. As an architect you hope to acquire enough of a working knowledge of various specialist practices – such as structural engineering or exhibition design – to inform all of the decisions that go into producing architecture. Media is no different. One of the ambitions of the course is to explore the potential of a given media – film, for example – not as an expert practitioner, but instead, as an architect who can develop a considered knowledge of the practice to ultimately open up new ways of collaborating with experts, or even becoming fluent in the practice itself. Central to the course is an appreciation of media’s capacity to interrogate and reinvent architecture. For example, the Zapruder film of the assassination of President John F Kennedy in Dealey Plaza (illustrated) – essentially a home movie – not only reconfigured the architectural space of a place previously deemed too mundane for TV camera crews to cover at the time, but also generated new modes of chaos, ambiguity and
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Screenshot of Abraham Zapruder, Frame Z365 of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (1963)
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conspiracy. In turn, this inaugurated a new type of representative political space – one that was rife with contradictions. Quite an impact for a 26.5-second film. Each kind of media has its own logic and its own absurdities. Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), though frequently referenced, is a germane example of this dualism precisely because it deals with a particular spatiality – a circuitous hotel interior – that is entirely illogical outside the parameters of the film (wrapping around itself). However, within the film this irrational trajectory of movement takes on a new kind of logic which is based on the amount of time it takes to show a small boy on a tricycle cycling around the interior. Perhaps the possibilities inherent in these contradictions are best expressed by one critic’s take on the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño, through whom ‘we have come to accept the disruptions of linearity’. Such disruptions open up the space for other fragmentary, oneiric or even provisional accounts. If we accept this statement then the potential lies in exploring these fragments and contingencies. If this is possible in photography, or film, is it not also possible in architecture? After all, in terms of actual building, architecture is usually painfully slow. We can begin to break away from considering architecture in terms of built time by seeing it through media. In One Way Boogie Woogie (1977), for example, the filmmaker James Benning examines post-industrial Milwaukee through
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60 one-minute static shots – an approach that aligns with the idea put forward by Paul Virilio and others that the contemporary world is measured less in spatial terms than in increments of time. Such a renegotiation of the speed of architectural production informs the pedagogical approach of the course. The course combines seminars, workshops and research projects before culminating in a final thesis project. Seminars are aimed at unpacking the histories and precedents of these media practices, discussing their mechanics, operations, usage and architectural histories. Workshops and research projects help students develop an understanding of these types of media through conversations with different media practitioners including the documentary photographer Thomas Haywood and Polly Braden, whose work China Between (2005–09) involved making photographs while walking across China for four years. The course also intends to take conversations beyond the academic environment and into a more public realm – like the recent discussion with the photographer Nadav Kander, or an upcoming talk with the writer Tom McCarthy – in order to allow students and participants to explore the possibilities of an expanded media practice of architecture.
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Screenshot from James Benning, One Way Boogie Woogie (1977)
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This is not a love song, installation by Didier FiĂşza Faustino in Bedford Square, photo Bozar Ben Zeev, AA Fifth Year
THIS IS NOT A LOVE SONG
We range the view, we do Dead will fall, no one’s bothered You’re trapped, me too Alienation, no one’s bothered No one’s bothered No one’s bothered No one’s bothered No one’s bothered We range the view, we do Dead will fall, no one’s bothered You’re trapped, me too Alienation, no one’s bothered No one’s bothered No one’s bothered No one – Sleaford Mods, lyrics from the song ‘No one’s bothered’ www.aaschool.ac.uk/exhibitions
Photo Valerie Bennett
Foam mould, awaiting plaster at CAMPO gallery
THE SUPREME ACHIEVEMENT, A REFLECTION — Campo Participants
The notion of building onto previous ideas, reworking old projects to make new ones. As participants, we performed that twice during the workshop: firstly from Superstudio, secondly from invited architects. What did we take/omit from each precedent? One precise way to address this might be to look at the translation of ideas through different modes of representation: text to drawings to models. – Roberto Boettger www.campo.space/the-supreme-achievement
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Top: Gerta Heqimi Bottom: Antonio Laruffa, Claudia Mainardi, Stefano Madelli
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Top: Angelica Palumbo Bottom: Olukoye Akinkugbe
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Top left: Moad Musbahi Top right: Adriano Tasso Bottom: Marta Kruger
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Antonio Laruffa, Claudia Mainardi, Stefano Madelli
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Top: Roberto Boettger Bottom: Davide Matteazzi, Marco Uliana
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Top: Lera Samovich Bottom: Sofia Pia Belenky, Hunter Doyle
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STONEHENGE: WHAT WAS IT? — Paffard Keatinge-Clay
Paffard Keatinge-Clay attempts to understand Stonehenge https://stonehengebypaffard.wordpress.com
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The pages that follow are extracts from my studies toward solving the so-called ‘Mystery of Stonehenge’. They are torn from a book in preparation, and so appear un-edited. This is a study that should not be by one man alone. It could be by a group of dedicated students of architecture. Architecture would be a much better base than the excavations of archaeology. I thank AArchitecture for this opportunity of sharing my work. Technology is the key to the Bronze Age. So what was bronze? How and where was it made? It was and still is made by blending 90% of copper a soft metal, with 10% of tin, another soft metal, but at a very high temperature, 2,000°F, to make the first man-made metal, extremely hard bronze. Before this flint provided the sharp cutting edges for tools and weapons of war, one by one. With the casting of liquid bronze, cutting edges could now be mass produced from one mould. What a leap forward in technology! Copper could be mined in many places but tin is rare. The best is under the sea between Cornwall and the Scilly Isles. They came from the extreme east of the Mediterranean to mine it. In 3,000 BC Mesopotamia was leading the world in such technology. It had little to do with superstitions and religions. So what was Stonehenge? It depends on what is meant by that word. Do you mean those big stones, or do you mean the location to which they
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were hauled? They were all hauled from Avebury. Those are all the Stones of Avebury, twenty-five kilometres to the north, but a very small part of the original Mesopotamian Bronze Factory around that site on Salisbury Plain. Such is the base of my hypothesis. For this ‘Bronze Factory’, high temperature fire and elevated circulating water were essential. Both functions evolved over many generations, using different materials, sarsen stone, blue stone, timber, lime-stone, and fire-brick according to location, in Mesopotamia, Cornwall, Wales, Avebury and the ‘Site of Stonehenge’. It was the Marlborough sarsen stone that lasted longer. On the death of the Emperor Sargon of Mesopotamia, the barbarians rushed into the capital Akkad from all sides and along the overextended Empire as far as Avebury. Knowing nothing of technology, they grabbed the trilithons from their designated purpose as ‘water-gates’ in the great Avebury moat, to be religious gates to the central treasury at the ‘Site of Stonehenge’. Crashing these trilithons stones into place destroyed the ‘Bronze Factory’ and its operation forever. Well, that is my hypothesis as an architect.
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Top: The remains of the hydraulic ring Middle: The five high-temperature ovens for bronze Bottom: All masonry completed with stones now recycled
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Avebury, Pewsey and Til-Avon Avebury: WH Windmill Hill MA Moat of Avebury SH Silbury Hill RA River Avon GS Gold Stream BH Beckhampton WDR Wandyke Route RIN Residential Infrastructure North Pewsey: MH Marden Hill RT River Til RA River Avon GSH Great Stone Haul KAC Kennet Avon Canal RR Rapid Route {Theme}
Til-Avon: STH Site of Stonehenge RT River Til RA River Avon WH Woodhenge RHC Robin Hood Control DW Durrington Wall RIS Residential Infrastructures South ADY Avon Dockyard SSA Stonehenge Solar Avenue
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Windmill Hill, Silbury Hill, Avebury Ring and the Aqueduct.
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CT GW FH CWS DW INF MDS SLD AGI WBR AVM SBH BHH BHC CS CSS SBR SG NG SR NR
Castle of Windmill Hill within its walls Gateway Fountain head City walls with moat Epoch Two enclosing a city for qualified citizens Defence wall. This continues all around the claimed mining zone and includes the so-called ‘Wandyke’ to the South and the ‘Infrastructure’ to the East. The straight line infrastructure along the East defence line is self-draining from elevation … at the North … with constant fresh water for long houses for non citizens, task masters, slaves and domesticated beasts. Marlborough Downs sarsen stones are quarried to the East of the infrastructure, even carved to specifications up here. Slid down to the Avebury level +155m Agriculture irrigation channel clearly defines the fields down to the river. The Winterbourne River, flowing from the North supplies the moats of Windmill Hill and Avebury. Avebury moat was built in Epoch Two as was Silbury Hill. Silbury Hill is a slag heap for the South Stream Mines Epochs Two and Three. Beckhampton Hill was possibly the slag heap for Epoch One. Beckhampton Control was once the centre of all mining operations, superceded by CS. Control Station Control Station, Silbury Silbury Rough Refinery before transport for total refining to copper and bronze within the Avebury moat South Gate and North Gate of the Avebury Moat enclosure AVM South Ring and North Ring are of different epochs as detailed on the following pages.
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River Til from Avebury Til dockyard. Dam at water level +100 with hydraulic control. Stream from RHC. Til dockyard control gate. Trilithon control hatchway Robin Hood Castle. Supreme control Epoch Two. North heavy transport gate Upper Avon Castle Open copper mining Knap Hill Castle. ‘On-line’ stone henge. Residential infrastructure: fresh water for ‘longhouses’ for slave families and domesticated beasts. Stonehenge aqueduct Flint mine shafts Avon dockyard Epoch Two Avon dockyard control Site of Stone Henge {Theme} 53
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Epoch Three South River Til from Avebury Til dockyard. Dam at water level +100 with hydraulic control. Stream from RHC. Til dockyard Control Trilithon control hatch North transport gate Robin Hood Castle. Status reduced to North Gate defence control. Knap Hill. Supreme control Sargon Epoch. Durrington walls city (citizens only) Woodhenge control station Avon canal Stonehenge aqueduct Residential infrastructure Epoch Three. Non citizens, slave families, domesticated beasts, irrigated pastures. Stonehenge copper refinery. Frustrated bronze factory relocation. Flint mine shafts Avon dockyard Epoch Three Avon dockyard control
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The Trilithons and Ramps were crushed in later destroying the Bronze Factory.
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None of these stones belong to the Site of Stonehenge, but come from Avebury.
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Rest and relaxation in the Comfort Zone
Comfort Zone — AYR
Created for the Frieze Art Fair, Comfort Zone was imagined by the AYR collective consisting of Architectural Association graduates Fabrizio Ballabio, Alessandro Bava, Luis Ortega Govela and Octave Perrault. Comfort Zone addresses the relatively new implications of the ‘smart home’, in which technology and interior design become inextricably linked in design for domesticity. These new paradigms of the home are explored in tandem with AYR’s past interests on the home and domestic life in the new sharing economy. http://lovarts.co.uk/2015/10/15/ lovarts-favourites-at-frieze
W T W Ching
AA PERSONALTIES NO 3: W T W CHING — Edward Bottoms
‘Ching ever immaculate, unruffled, and kindly’ – unlike his yard. AA Personality No 3 presented by AA Archivist Edward Bottoms. www.aaschool.ac.uk/archives
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The AA has its own strange internal toponymy: the ‘Front Members’ Room’ (a reminder of the student / member segregation up to the 50s), the ‘Soft Room’ (originally a 2nd floor den populated with smoke and cushions in the 70s), and of course ‘Ching’s Yard’, the name we all unthinkingly apply to that rather odd, awkward space at the heart of the school. Hemmed in between the Georgian frontage and the inter-war back block, Ching’s Yard is infamous as the site of many ‘happenings’ – it has seen a demonstration of Gustav Metzger’s ‘Auto Destructive Art’, it has been bridged, helterskeltered into (1960s Carnival), and had gigantic Coke cans and parts of buses craned out of. Yet who on earth was Ching? The name clearly has a long pedigree. Historic plans of the AA reveal that Ching’s Yard emerges out of an earlier incarnation – the ‘Ching’s Head’, a student bar created in 1926 and located in the basement of number 34, in what is now the AA Photo Studio. Further digging reveals Ching himself emerging, somewhat enigmatically, from the pages of Harlequinade, the AA student journal of the early 1920s, photographed sitting gazing contemplatively into an AA cup of tea. Further archival research unveils a rather fascinating and tragic story... Born in Remuera, New Zealand, in 1888, William Thorne Wilmot Ching attended King’s College, Auckland and embarked on a promising architectural career in the offices of A B Wilson before setting sail for the UK, where he is first
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1924 advert in the Harlequinade
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recorded as an AA member in 1909. From 1911–13 he attended the AA’s Evening School, followed by a final year at the Day School in 1913/14, from which he graduated, winning the prize for best Studio Work. On the outbreak of war, Ching volunteered for the King Edward’s Horse, received a Lieutenant’s commission in the Royal Field Artillery and was sent to the front in early 1915. He saw action at the infamous battle of ‘Hill 60’, near Ypres, where he gained the Military Cross for heroism, rescuing two injured colleagues trapped with burning ammunition in a gunpit under severe enemy shelling. He himself was the victim of a poison gas attack and, remarkably enough, was seriously injured three times within the space of two years. After recuperation, Ching returned to the AA and in 1919 he was appointed ‘House Master’, his duties including overseeing the administrative and logistical arrangements for the AA studios and atelier within the newly acquired Bedford Square premises. He appears to have had an exceedingly calm, self-possessed demeanour, a ‘kindly presence which... loomed broadly and pleasantly in studio and coffee room.’ His character was such that he could ‘quieten the most boisterous disturbances... with the perfect manners of a courtier’ and possessed ‘such a comforting way of listening to people’s troubles that many were drawn to him for advice, and none over regretted making him their confidant.’ Surprisingly enough, Ching’s stint as House Master stretched only for
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four years and in 1923 he resigned in order to set up a firm of heating engineers with F Broadhurst Craig. However, his status was such that Howard Robertson, writing an appreciation of his work acknowledged that ‘Everyone who knew the AA in recent years knew Ching. Ching ever immaculate, unruffled, and kindly.’ If the 1923 Harlequinade photograph of Ching, published on his resignation, was meant to depict him contemplating a radiant future in the heating industry, this was not to be. He married later that year but in the summer of 1924 went into hospital for an operation to mitigate the side-effects of the war-time poison gassing, only to die on the 21st July, 1924 after a second, unsuccessful operation.
Sources AA Council Minutes 1920–27, AA Archives. National Probate Calendar, 1858–1966.
Harlequinade, Vol 1, No 3, October, 1923, p2.
British Army WW1 Medal Rolls index 1914–20.
New Zealand Herald, 17 March 1915, p9; 5 October 1916, p9; 25 July 1924, p8.
AA Journal, December 1916, p75; August 1916, p33; October 1924, p89.
Poverty Bay Herald, 9 October 1916, p8.
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DIGITAL CRAFTSMANSHIP, THE AA_AARHUS VISITING SCHOOL — Eléonore Audi and Moad Musbahi
Eléonore Audi (Dip6) and Moad Musbahi (Inter1) reflect on their experience attending the new AA Visiting School that took place in the Aarhus School of Architecture during August of 2015. www.aaschool.ac.uk/aarhus
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The impact of the Universal Cutting Tool (UCT) against the paper held fast by the efficient vacuum machine is guided by a spring-loaded glide shoe, inscribing the carefully placed standardised sheet of card, with a geometry that is highly coordinated with x,y values. As the machine deciphers the script, lines sharply appear on the white plane dictated by the red laser beam. No burn mark, just a precise cut. The Zßnd G3 Digital Cutter’s drag knives and modular system of implements operates at a swift speed and employs a tolerance that approaches the digital space. The red laser flashing out heralds the end of the sequential translations. From the fingers tapping on the keyboard, setting a series of parameters which will define and be defined by data sets, to the activation of pixels and sub-pixels. From the screen visualising these ideas taking shape and subsequently unravelling the intangible numbered patterns, organising and flattening out the entire geometry. Until the blade, having accomplished its choreographed task, returns to 0,0,0 and finally rests. The 2015 AA_Aarhus Visiting School came to rely heavily and be informed by the mechanics of this machine. The Visiting School was taught in the second most populous Danish city, Aarhus. A city with the largest university in the country and an intensely active culinary and coffee scene (La Cabra coffee roasters is internationally recognised for its perfectly brewed cup), during what UNESCO had dubbed The Year of the Light.
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Light was taken as one set of environmental information. Embedding geometry with information was the main challenge set by the course. An ethos that was intended to allow for a thinking through process rather than a prescriptive process to think. Though the emphasis was on manipulating and understanding light, the discussion of parameters that weren’t necessarily environmental or quantifiable coloured much of the thinking that occurred. Prototyping complex and playful geometries set the ground for understanding the potentials and future uses of this particular method. Of particular note was the visit by Daniel Piker, currently a Design Systems Analyst at Foster + Partners. Having written and developed Kangaroo, he introduced the earliest implementations of the plug-in and humbly revealed his drive for implementing a physics engine to the existing parametric modelling system that architects use. Arisen from a passion for understanding origami and complex foldings, DP developed a tool which now helps bridge digital simulations and the physical world. This plug-in found its use, from paper origami to physical structures, in work such as the roof of the British Museum or the new Madrid International Airport. This level of intervention, in relation to the work of Daniel Piker, questions the possible themes that are behind the construction of work in an architectural environment. A particular computer programme dictates the possibilities one is able
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to achieve while using it. We assume, explicitly or otherwise, that one prescribes within a theme of use when we use any sort of software or digital environment. This assumption is then turned on its head when it comes to coding, as one is then able to insert or alter the interface and the mechanism, albeit depending on how far down one wishes to intervene. This begins to break the paradigm of what these things are able to achieve or how they control the means in which to use them. An example of this was best exemplified in the use of the Grab tool in Kangaroo, allowing manual manipulation through the parameters of the mouse movement in the virtual modelling space of Rhino, something previously impossible between the two. The final show exhibited the works of all groups arraying a wide range of 3D interests and light experiments. Fabricating a 1:1 prototype allowed the entire process of digital fabrication to be explored, and reinforced the feeling that even though these techniques exist in the realm of numbers and data sets, they only come into being with the use of the carefully guided hand and a careful arrangement in space, an activity that still remains an integral part of digital fabrication, but is being creatively reimagined.
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NEW FROM AA PUBLICATIONS AND BEDFORD PRESS
AA Publications is one of the world’s leading architectural publishers. The 2015–16 editorial programme includes the launch of more than two dozen titles by architects, artists, AA tutors and students. The AA’s own Print Studio includes architectural editors, graphic designers and an art director. AA Publications incorporates an in-house imprint, Bedford Press, publishing books and ebooks at the intersection of architecture, visual art, graphic design and theory. www.aaschool.ac.uk/publications www.bedfordpress.org
Nightswimming presents a spatial history and analysis of discotheques from the 1960s until today. Through the photographs of Giovanna Silva, a selection of interviews and a collection of critical texts, Nightswimming dives into the fascinating, radical, architectural world of the night.
Photographs by Giovanna Silva A project by Chiara Carpenter & Giovanna Silva Essays by Max Dax, Pol Esteve and Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli 192 pp, 270 x 220 mm Extensive colour ills, hardcover January 2016 978-1-907414-49-7 £15
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Nightswimming: Discotheques from the 1960s to the Present
Evening lecture and book launch 25 February, 6pm AA Lecture Hall
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Some Reasons for Travelling to Italy Italian cities have been points of reference for much of architect Peter Wilson’s life, and the reasons for visiting have long presented themselves as not just the easy list – holidays, food, architecture. The Grand Tour is the most obvious trope for framing these things, but it is also a vehicle for understanding Italy’s wider architectural habitat and cultural mythology. This book offers an eclectic list of reasons to head south, illustrated by Wilson’s own drawings and watercolours.
Peter Wilson With a preface by Kurt Forster 256 pp, 116 x 163 mm Extensive colour & b / w ills Paperback January 2016 978-1-907896-78-1 £25 Private view and book launch 15 January, 6.30–8.30pm Front Members’ Room
Memo for Nemo is an account of human inhabitation of the undersea in fact and fiction. Starting with Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, this book examines the depths as a zone created through exploration and invention, from early attempts to photograph and descend below the surface to contemporary surveillance of the rapidly changing oceans. This history is paralleled and subverted by a fictitious history of films and other hallucinogenic delights.
William Firebrace c 250 pp, 225 × 140 mm Colour & b / w ills, paperback Spring 2016 978-1-907896-54-5 c £20
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Memo for Nemo
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AA Agendas: Rituals and Walls – The Architecture of Sacred Space Sacred space has been a neglected topic in recent architecture and debates about the city. This book is the result of a yearlong investigation, developed through the AA’s Diploma Unit 14, which aims to re-open a contemporary understanding of sacred space through texts and design proposals – from a multi-faith school in Strasbourg and a Jesuit monastery in Detroit, to an Islamic women’s centre in Paris.
Edited by Pier Vittorio Aureli & Maria Shéhérazade Giudici c 256 pp, 310 × 240 mm Extensive colour & b / w ills Paperback Spring 2016 978-1-907896-63-7 c £30
Ernesto Nathan Rogers (1909–1969) – architect, editor, writer and educator – can be credited with expanding the appreciation of modern architecture in the Italian context and beyond. Yet in the historiography of twentiethcentury architecture he has gone relatively unrecognised. Most of the texts for this volume have been translated into English for the first time and reveal both Rogers’ efforts to render the past as present and his unique capacity to ‘handle and remould’ architectural language.
Ernesto Nathan Rogers Translated and edited by Roberta Marcaccio with Shumi Bose c 160 pp, 180 × 110 mm B / w ills, paperback Spring 2016 978-1-907896-66-8 £15
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Architecture Words 14: The Hero of Doubt
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AA BOOKSHOP’S RECOMMENDED READING FOR {THEME}
The AA Bookshop is one of London’s leading specialist architecture bookshops. Order the following titles online, where a selection of new books, special offers and some backlist titles are available. aabookshop.net
Light in Architecture explores the role of light in buildings throughout history and the many disparate ways in which architects have approached the phenomenon around the world. Translated and updated from the best-selling Spanish original, this book highlights the significance of light on human perception by examining the ways in which it can be harnessed. Light in Architecture offers a fascinating study of how a greater understanding of this intangible, material can improve our built environment.
Elisa Valero Ramos 192 pp, 210 x 170 mm Paperback Summer 2015 £25
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Light in Architecture: The Intangible Material
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Soviet Bus Stops Photographer Christopher Herwig first noticed the unusual architecture of Soviet-era bus stops during a 2002 long-distance bike ride from London to St Petersburg. Twelve years later, Herwig had covered more than 18,000 miles in 14 countries of the former Soviet Union, travelling by car, bike, bus and taxi to hunt down and document these bus stops. The result is an astonishing variety of styles and types across the region, from the strictest Brutalism to exuberant whimsy.
Christopher Herwig 192 pp, 200 x 160 mm Paperback £19.95
AA News
A new Development and External Engagement team is being established at the AA that will cover fundraising, develop improved Alumni relations, and expand on the existing Membership provision managed by the Membership Office. We welcome Nicole Gillham, who leads the team
A rare Russian periodical has come to light in the AA Library book storage area. Its title is ‘Architecture and Art Weekly’, published by the Imperial Academy of Arts (or possibly the Imperial Society of Architect-Artists) in Petrograd, Russia. Dating from a year before the start of the Russian Revolution, the journal includes a range of illustrated articles on contemporary and historic architecture. The journal is entirely written in Russian and its provenance is unknown. It may possibly have been acquired from A E Richardson, who was an AA member and wrote on classic architecture in Russia in The Architectural Review in 1915 and 1916. Less likely, it may have come from F R Yerbury, AA Secretary during the 1920s and 1930s, who visited the USSR in 1932. An exhibition of material collected by Yerbury in Russia was held at the AA from 1–24 November 1932. collectionsblog.aaschool.ac.uk/ aa-library-rare-russian-periodicaldiscovered
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The AA’s Hooke Park campus in Dorset was featured in the BBC’s Countryfile episode of 22 November 2015. With 14 minutes of air time dedicated to Hooke Park, the programme explored the setting and the facilities and followed AA students and staff on a typical day’s work. Hooke Park is the Architectural Association’s woodland site in Dorset, southwest England. The 150-hectare working forest is owned and operated by the AA and contains a growing educational facility for design, workshop, construction and landscape-focused activities. Underlying these activities is the opportunity to develop new rural architectures and an ethic of material self-sufficiency. The Hooke Park website experienced a massive increase in traffic to several thousand hits per day as a result of the TV exposure. The programme attracted 7 million viewers. hookepark.aaschool.ac.uk
as Director of Development and External Engagement and Eleanor Harvey, Development Assistant. Further appointments will be made in the New Year for a new Head of Development and a new Head of Communications.
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A wonderful collection of drawings by Juha Kääpä has been donated to the AA Archives, including a full set of original designs from his 1982/83 project for an embassy building for Sony Corporation on Hampstead Heath, London. The project was undertaken whilst studying in AA Diploma 5, under tutor Mike Gold. collectionsblog.aaschool.ac.uk
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Didier Faustino’s AA Exhibition was featured in Dezeen, November 2015. The article focuses primarily on Faustino’s This is Not a Love Song, a ‘spiky stage in front of the Architectural Association to encourage spontaneous public speaking’. www.dezeen.com/2015/11/10/ didier-faustinos-aa-exhibitionspiky-yellow-stage-publicspeaking-london The yellow-star houses of Budapest exhibition in the AA’s Front Members’ Room by photographer Nigel Swann was featured in The Guardian and on the BBC’s cultural calendar for November/December 2015. In 1944, 220,000 Hungarian Jews destined for the death camps were obliged to wear a yellow star and live under curfew in one of 2,000 houses assigned to them in Budapest and marked with the same star – one family per room. Nigel Swann’s haunting
photographs depict the entrances to hundreds of these apartment blocks – their doors, letterboxes, graffiti, vitrines and facades in various states of disrepair. www.theguardian.com/ artanddesign/2015/nov/04/ yellow-star-houses-budapesthungarian-jews-nazis-holocaust www.bbc.com/culture/ event/20151105-yellow-starhouses-of-budapest The Italian magazine Abitare featured the AA’s Bedford Press in October 2015. www.abitare.it/en/research/ publications/2015/10/19/ bedford-press-publishingarchitectural-association Careers and Prizes Work by Canales&Lombardero (Nuria Alvarez Lombardero and Francisco Gonzalez de Canales, Inter 8 Unit Masters) was exhibited from 3 October to 20 November at Arquiteturas Dispostas, in Mostra Espanha, Evora. The exhibition showed a selection of works from Spanish and Portuguese architectural practices which develop a contemporary interest in material experimentation. www.canales-lombardero.com
Recent AA Unit Master Takero Shimazaki’s renovation of the Curzon Renoir cinema was reviewed by Vicky Richardson for Architecture Today. Vicky is head of ADF at the British Council and AA Council Member. The magazine is available to read online and the feature can be found on pages 40–49. edition.pagesuite-professional. co.uk/launch.aspx?eid=3d9df85abd70-465a-bb3c-2d23c4806423 New artwork by Antoni Malinowski (AA Media Studies Tutor) has now opened at the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter at Oxford University.
John Palmesino and Ann-Sofi Rönnskog (Dip 4 Unit Masters) presented some of their work at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London, on Saturday 17 October 2015 as part of Transformation Marathon, the tenth in the Serpentine’s annual festival of ideas. Edgar Payan Pacheco (AA MArch DRL 2006) has launched the Mexican Talent Network-UK, backed by the Mexican Embassy in London. Its focus will be on creative industries in the UK and it will showcase the work of outstanding Mexican artists, architects and photographers. www.facebook.com/ events/1615904448675055 A team of AA Staff and graduates, Jose Alfredo Ramirez (AA Landscape Urbanism Co-Director), Clara Oloriz (AA Landscape Urbanism Studio Master), Arturo Lyon (AA DRL graduate) and Alejandra Bosch (AA Landscape Urbanism graduate) have won an International Competition to redevelop the Alameda/Providencia main urban corridor of Santiago de Chile. The project comprises the design of a 12 km transport/ urban corridor that enhances the public space and integrates public transport in to the civic life of the city by prioritising pedestrian and bicycle
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Sho Ito (5th year student) was featured in Japanese Junction, an exhibition in Tokyo. Sho’s 4th year AA project The New Westminster Model: The Shift of Political Power was one of 13 designs selected amongst architecture students from the USA and Europe. Japanese Junction is an annual exhibition organised by Nikken Sekkei that invites Japanese students overseas to showcase their work, to create a platform for architectural discussion on the ever increasing formats of architectural education, style, representation, conceptual framework and working processes. japanesejunction.jp
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movement. It creates a linear plaza framed by water and trees that brings back the character of the corridor as an ‘Alameda’. www.nuevaalamedaprovidencia.cl
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Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM), the practice codirected by Simon Allford (AA Foundation Trustee & former AA Vice President) won this year’s RIBA Stirling Prize for Burntwood School, a large comprehensive girls’ school in Wandsworth, London, on 15 October 2015. AHMM’s transformation of Burntwood School reimagines a 1950’s modernist school campus for 2000 girls and 200 staff. The architects created six new faculty buildings and two large cultural buildings linking original buildings by Sir Leslie Martin. www.architecture.com www.ahmm.co.uk AA Year Out student Roberto Boettger won the Valentiny Award with his 4th Year Diploma project in September 2015. Over 50 applications from 13 different countries were submitted. The jury in Luxembourg commented: ‘After rigorous contemplation and discussion, we believe the work of Mr Boettger embodies the vision, drive and sensibility to successfully define a new urban common place.’ The project deals with the connection of an
existing meat market from 1868 with a proposed railway station 27 metres below ground. www.valentiny-foundation.com www.journal.lu/article/ gebaute-ideen The Real Estate Architecture Laboratory (REAL) has been founded by Jack Self (AADipl 2014) and Shumi Bose (AA graduate and current HCT Tutor) as a charitable foundation for alternative forms of development, property and ownership. REAL’s most recent project is a bi-monthly, independent magazine about architecture called the Real Review. www.kickstarter.com/projects/ jackself/the-real-review-a-bimonthly-architecture-magazine Dame Zaha Hadid (AADipl 1977) became this year the 9th AA graduate and first woman to win the RIBA Gold Medal (AA Graduate Patty Hopkins was joint recipient with her husband in 1963). The 2015 COAM First Prize was awarded this year to the Headquarters of the Fundación Francisco Giner De Los Rios, by Cristina Diaz Moreno and Efren Garcia Grinda (Dip 5 Unit Masters). The jury was unanimous in its decision and commended the project’s excellent integration in the existing urban fabric and its
innovative approach. www.coam.org/es/servicios/ concursos/concursos-ocam/ premios-coam-2015 www.arquitecturaviva.com/es/ info/news/list?topicid=6 Obituaries
I have chosen to work directly in metal, perhaps as much for practical as for personal reasons. Oxy-acetylene welding (the welding torch is my basic tool) has great flexibility and with it I have made a great range of things from delicate jewellery to large outdoor sculpture. The result is durable and no further process such as costly casting is necessary. In any event, having acquired this technique I have proceeded to explore it as fully as possible. The metals bronze and copper have tremendous versatility as regards both form and surface treatment and their possibilities as sculptural materials are inexhaustible so I have used them predominantly. Lately I have found myself including the colder metal – brass. The technique and the metal act as a guide and give
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Berrell Jensen died on 25 July 2015 at Mercy University Hospital, Cork, Ireland. Berrell was a South African-born metal sculptor, social worker and teacher. She graduated from the Architectural Association in 1984 with a GradDipl(AA) in Planning. Born in Potchefstroom in 1933, Berrell graduated from Natal University in Durban with a BSc in Social Science. She had a number of jobs including librarian, laboratory assistant in a paint factory and public relations officer for Lever Brothers. While her husband, Anton Jensen was completing his Masters, she began making metal mobiles for sale. Known for her practical aptitude, perhaps inspired from childhood days spent at her father’s garage and repair shop, she studied welding and was soon creating large sculptures and panels out of copper, bronze, silver and enamels. She organised her first exhibition in 1960 in Durban, Natal.
In the next eight years Berrell had nineteen exhibitions, seven of these as a solo artist. Her work was spotted by architects and she completed fourteen large-scale public commissions including fountains. Her mural in copper and bronze for the Jan Smuts International Airport VIP lounge measured eighteen by four metres. Berrell’s inspirations included Henry Moore, Alexander Calder and Reg Butler. Of her creative technique she has written:
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the character imposed by the limitations they have and I express my ideas and feelings within these limitations. My own integrity is at stake if I try to show results not related to the real characteristics of the metal and techniques I use.
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After the tragic death of her husband in a car accident in Greece in 1969, she lived in England, where she had six exhibitions and was interviewed for BBC and HTV television programmes. In 1977, as part of an initiative to develop local industries, she was invited by Father McDyer to set up a craft centre in Glencolumbkille, Co. Donegal, Ireland. This was in effect the start of a new career. In Belfast she was appointed Assistant Director of the Open Centre, an adult education centre funded by charitable trusts. In London, while also studying at the Architectural Association for a Diploma in Planning, she set up the Highgate Newtown Community Centre. She then became Hampstead Community Centre’s Director, a post she held for nine years. Berrell returned to Ireland in 1993, where she bought a 300-year-old Protestant church in Rochfortbridge, Co. Westmeath. She renovated the building, designating a large area as a metal studio. She began welding
again, completing several commissions including for the Midland Health Board in Tullamore and the Tanyard Resource Centre in Offaly. The Dublin Corporation commissioned six metal screens, each 1.75 metres wide by 5.82 metres high for the entrance stairwells of the Marrowbone Lane Flats. This work she completed just prior to her first hip-replacement in 1996, at age 63. She was a fervent environmentalist and in 2001 organised a County Westmeath environmental group objecting to a controversial planning application for a landfill site in the Killucan area. Her knowledge of local wild life, peat bog and wetlands helped prevent the dump proceeding. Berrell settled in Co. Cork in 2003, where she put her boundless energy into gardening. She will be much missed for her humour, enthusiasm, determination, patience and loyalty. Berrell is survived by her daughter Sandra, a writer, her son Michael, an IT and communications consultant, and by her three grandchildren, Oliver, Hugh, and Lucia. The AA is sad to report that former AA graduate Desmond Henly (AADipl RIBA TPDip 1922–2015) has passed away. Rupert Desmond Henly
donated all his student work and material from the Planning School and more recently to the Photo Library, slides he took in the 1950s of the Eames House and other important projects. A memorial was held on what would have been his 93rd birthday, 25 November 2015 at the place of his birth, the Sudeley Castle Estate, Winchcombe. Sadly, architect William John Baker (FRIBA 1927–2015), known as John, passed away in October 2015 at the age of 88. John had a long and successful career working for 30+ years with James Cubitt and Partners (JC&P), establishing an office in Lagos in 1956, and becoming a partner in 1968. He was a partner at JC&P London for the rest of his career. He had been a member of the AA since 1996. He will be greatly missed by architects, friends and family alike. The AA is saddened to hear of the death of architect Pilar Gonzalez-Herraiz Ling (AADipl RIBA ARCUK 1957–2015) who passed away on 10 April 2015. Pilar who graduated from the AA with a diploma in 1984, had a successful career as the co-director of Malaysia & Spain based practice Architron Design, which she set up with husband and fellow AA graduate Frank Lee-Huat Ling
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attended the Cheltenham School of Art and the North Gloucestershire Technical College part-time from 1939–42. After being articled to Ranger & Rogers, Architects, he passed his Part I exams externally at the RIBA in May 1943. He joined Royal Engineers in 1942 and served through the duration of World War II. After war service he joined the AA in 1946 for the 4th and 5th years, receiving the AA Diploma in 1948. Henly attended the School of Planning & Research for Regional Development in Gordon Square for a year in 1948–49. In 1951 Henly went to the United States and worked in 1952–53 at the Sacramento Redevelopment Agency as a Planning Officer, a 1-year Town Planning Institute requirement. He then worked with Richard Neutra as a draughtsperson for two years and went on to work for Abe Geller in New York. Henly returned to the UK in 1955, when he then opened his own practice primarily designing domestic architecture. He retired to the south coast of England and later moved back to Cheltenham. Mr Henly has been a strong supporter of the AA and its students, emphasising the value of student work such as sketch books in the educational process. Mr Henly also kindly
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in 1994. A global lecturer, writer and academic, GonzalezHerraiz was an AA Member since 1996. The great German photographer Hilla Becher died on 10 October 2015. Working alongside her husband Bernd, the couple – long referred to by the collective moniker ‘The Bechers’ – transformed not only the way buildings could be photographed, but also the ascribed values attached to those buildings. To read an engaging biographical conversation between Hilla and AA Files editor Thomas Weaver, recorded and published in 2013, please visit http://issuu.com/aaschool/docs/ aa_files_66_becher We regret to inform that AA Alumnus and Life Member John Burkett (AADipl FRIBA FCIArb, 1926–2015), has passed away aged 89. John graduated with an AA Diploma in 1953. He went on to become a RIBA fellow and, later on, a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in 1971. In the 1970s he won the Financial Times industrial buildings award for a farm building in Devon.
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The architect, urban planner and professor Ian MacBurnie (BArch GradDipl(AA) PhD 1955–2015) died Sunday 13 September aged 60 years old. Dr MacBurnie, who originally graduated from the AA in 1988 with a GradDipl(AA) in Housing & Urbanism also completed his PhD at the school in 1999 with his thesis ‘The Periphery and the American Dream’. An AA Member for more than 25 years, MacBurnie was an associate professor in the Department of Architectural Science at Ryerson University, Toronto where he was instrumental in founding the gradute programme. Canadian publication The Globe and Mail published this obituary on 18 September. theglobeandmail.com/ ianmacburnie
Notices Upcoming Exhibitions 16 January – 13 February 2016 Private view: Friday 15 October, 6.30pm
Some Reasons for Travelling to Italy: Peter Wilson Front Members’ Room Long before the English made a fashion of touring the Italian peninsula, the Romans paid them a visit. Julius Agricola, governor of London from 77 to 84AD, reported on progress made in assisting the bellicose ‘Britons to build temples, fora and homes to learn Latin, rhetoric … to become accustomed to the pleasures
South Wharf Road East: Stephen Carter AA Bar Stephen Carter’s images are formed through the competing actions of addition and subtraction. While his works depict actual sites and structures, they also maintain an indirect grip on the physical world, viewing reality through the interpretive lens of a plan, a model or a map. Following Carter’s paintings from the early 2000s, new works bear witness to the ebb and flow of the city and document its evolving manifestations.
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Walter’s Way, The Self-build Revolution AA Gallery Walter’s Way – The Self-Build Revolution presents the work of the revolutionary architect Walter Segal (1907–1985), focusing on his pioneering projects with the Lewisham self-builders and the application of his methods today. A newly constructed section of a Segal house makes up part of the exhibition, along with original drawings, documents and furniture designed by Segal, as well as archival films, photographs and a recent interpretation of Segal’s technique by 2015 Turner Prize winner Assemble.
of leisure’ – a seduction into a set of alluring vices, Agricola continued, that ‘the simple natives called humanitas, when it was really a facet of their enslavement’. The fragmented experiences recorded here attempt to add an unexpected and often contradictory dimension to the over familiar genre of the Grand Tour and the even more familiar genre of Italy as a whole.
Graduate Honours 2015 Graduate Gallery This annual exhibition presents outstanding work by students from the eight design-based postgraduate programmes.
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AA Undergraduate Applications Deadline All applicants must be 18 years of age or older by Monday 19 September 2016 to be eligible to enter the school for the 2016/17 academic year. The application procedure is the same for all applicants, regardless of where you are applying from. Applicants wishing to join the One Year Abroad (VSP) follow the same application procedure as Intermediate (Second and Third Year) applicants, but must tick the One Year Abroad box in the online application form. Prior to completing the form applicants should carefully read the entry requirements for their chosen year of entry. The AA will not accept multiple applications and applicants cannot change their year of entry once the application has been received, assessed and a decision has been made. Therefore, it is crucial that you apply for the year level most suited to your experience. Late applications for 2016/17 close: Friday 29 January 2016. For more information www.aaschool.ac.uk/apply/ admissions/undergradapp.php
RIBA Bursaries and Hardship Funds The 2015/16 RIBA Student Hardship Funds are now open for applications. The purposes of the RIBA Student Hardship Funds are to: • Alleviate financial hardship of students of architecture • Assist students financially in gaining professional experience • Widen participation in architectural education • Reduce student drop-out rates Grants of up to £2,000 are awarded to help architectural students who are experiencing exceptional financial hardship to continue their studies. Applications are accepted throughout the academic year. www.architecture.com/ hardshipfunds
ISSUE 28 BOUNDARY The boundary is the demarcation of a limit and a territory. It is the crossing point and the border; the dividing line between held positions.
We are interested in your interpretation. Essays, poems, drawings, sketches, diagrams or any other formats are welcome. Please submit a 100-word proposal by Friday 5 February 2016 to aarchitecture@aaschool.ac.uk.
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AArchitecture 27 / Term 2, 2015/16 www.aaschool.ac.uk © 2016 All rights reserved Published by the Architectural Association 36 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3ES Please send your news items for the next issue to aarchitecture@aaschool.ac.uk Student Editorial Team: Thomas Gillard Konstantilenia Koulouri Moad Musbahi Rory Sherlock
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Editorial Board: Zak Kyes, AA Art Director Alex Lorente, Membership Brett Steele, AA School Director Design: Claire Lyon Cover images: Martin Pawley, AA 5th Year Project, ‘The Time House’, 1966–67, courtesy AA Archive. AA Photography: Valerie Bennett and Sue Barr Printed by Blackmore, England Architectural Association (Inc) Registered Charity No 311083 Company limited by guarantee Registered in England No 171402 Registered office as above
CONTRIBUTORS AYR ElĂŠonore Audi Edward Bottoms Alex Butterworth Mark Campbell Campo Participants Zeina Derry Paffard Keatinge-Clay Matthew Turner Louisa Wong
EDITORS Thomas Gillard Konstantilenia Koulouri Moad Musbahi Rory Sherlock
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