1 minute read
What’s On?
RIBA President’s Medals 2013 Exhibition
05 December 2013 - 29 January 2014
Advertisement
RIBA, 66 Portland Place, London
Rating: Website:
The RIBA President’s Medals are awarded each year to “promote excellence in the study of architecture”, “reward talent” and “encourage architectural debate worldwide”. Exhibiting a selection of work from architecture schools around the world, it certainly does all three things. This year’s show, however, will attract the same criticism that it gets year on year.
Whilst there is no doubt of the talent and level of thought that each student has presented in the work displayed, there is a clear disconnect between some of the projects to reality. One project (although thoughtprovoking and beautifully represented) has a brief set 250 years into the future. Is this relevant to anything in practice today? Obviously universities should allow one to think beyond the usual constraints and develop a level of free thinking, but surely we need to be questioning the issues that we are bound to face in the foreseeable future?
The Bartlett swept the big awards for the Silver, Bronze and Dissertation Medals with some excellent design propositions. It could perhaps be said, again, that there is a bias towards London schools with just under half of the projects exhibited coming from London graduates. Only a handful come from UK schools outside London and Part I projects are also woefully underrepresented. Bath is represented by Sigita Burbulyte (winner of 2013’s Norman Foster Traveling Scholarship) for her exploration of slum communities around the world. For me, Grace Mills’ (University of Wellington, NZ) New Agora for the earthquake-ravaged city of Christchurch was the highlight. The project tackles a current socio-economic issue in a very sensitive manner, and is put together in an incredibly clear, considered and critical presentation.
Verdict: Not worth the visit. You could sit at home and go through the whole range of quality student work online (only around 30 are exhibited). Some of you may recognise the work of Charlie Proctor (Part I) and the Part II sustainable masterplans for the cities of Nicosia and Lisbon.
