4 Feb - National Gallery Sainsbury Wing by Venturi and Scott Brown
Opened in a blaze of publicity and mixed reviews in 1992, the extension of the National Gallery came at the end of a long and tortuous process by which assumptions about style and patronage in architecture were questioned. The lecture was given by Alan Powers, who placed the Sainsbury Wing in a longer story of American buildings in London and the classical revival and Post- Modernist movements of the 1980s.
11 Feb - St Catherine’s College, Oxford by Arne Jacobsen
The selection of a leading Danish architect to design a new Oxford college in 1959 was recognition of the high level of admirations given to Danish architecture and design at the time. Geoffrey Tyack, a Fellow of Oxford University and Director of the Stanford University Programme at Oxford described the selection process and the reception of the college buildings by the public.
18 Feb - New Ways, Northampton by Peter Behrens
The house was commissioned by W.J. Bassett-Lowke in 1925 and is sometimes credited with starting modern architecture in Britain. It was a remarkable and unexpected choice of a major figure from pre-1914 Germany, from a patron who had previously commissioned C. R. Mackintosh’s last major works. The lecture was given by architectural journalist Louise Campbell.
19 Feb – Lutyens in the City of London
Although Lutyens could hardly be described as a foreign architect, the AIA has extended its association with the C20 Society to include this comprehensive survey of his important work in London as the lecture was held in the same timeframe as the Foreign Exchange series. Dr Mervin Miller who gave the lecture not only has 37 years involvement in built environment conservation, but is also a charted architect and town planner.
25 Feb - Gane Pavilion, Bristol by Marcel Breuer
Marcel Breuer said that the two most important buildings in his career were UNESCO in Paris and the small temporary pavilion at the Royal West of England showground, designed in partnership with F.R.S Yorke in 1936. The speaker was Max Gane, the grandson of Crofton Gane whose company manufactured some of Breuer’s furniture and who also commissioned a transformation of his own house in Bristol.
3 Mar - Byker and other work by Ralph Erskine
Ralph Erskine was born and educated in Britain, but remained in Sweden at the outbreak of war in 1939, where he established a thriving practice before receiving several major commissions in Britain from the mid-1960s onwards. The speaker was, Elain Harwood, the senior architectural investigator for Historic England and author of “Space, Hope and Brutalism: English Architecture 1945-1975”. She interviewed Erskine in his last years and was able to put his most famous English project, the Byker Estate in Newcastle, in context with some of his lesser know work.
10 March - Holland House, Bury Street by H. P. Berlage
In 1916, in what was then a narrow street in the City of London, a novel building for a Dutch shipping company was completed to designs by the major Dutch architect, H. P. Berlage. It was then largely ignored for 50 years until the area was opened up by new construction. Herman van Berkeijk of Technical University of Delft explored the background to the commission and its place in Berlage’s career.
The C20 speakers have all been particularly good – always knowledgeable, frequently opinionated, often humorous and generally very willing to be interactive. The C20 Society must be congratulated on the success of its educational initiatives, given that the lectures all drew sizeable audiences of well over 50 attendees, including a majority of non-architects who held a surprising enthusiasm for the subject matter.
AIA UK will take a view on future events to see if the formal sponsorship for them can be initiated in a similar way. In the meantime, members are encouraged to check the website “Links” for other exciting educational opportunities.
Author: Lorraine King AIA
