CONTINUITY IN ARCHITECTURE

The details for the selection and appointment of the new Head of the Manchester School of Architecture can be found HERE … Do you have (and/or):

National/international reputation for academic leadership in the field

International research standing

Professional achievements and recognition

The job description mentions outstanding management and interpersonal skills and successful leadership particularly related to the management of change. A Professorship is available for an appropriately qualified candidate.

Picture: ‘Light & Darkness’ by Rob Krier, The Hague, Netherlands

Short notice I know. CiA director Sally Stone is lecturing at IUAV* 3pm today.

As she says in her Twitter feed: Speaking this afternoon at IUAV. Apparently I’m the warm up act for David Chipperfield.

*University IUAV of Venice

IUAV in brief

Update (18:00)

Some architecture students I recently met had never heard of Peter Zumthor (!). I offer a photoset of the Kolumba Museum in Cologne as a reminder.

Photoset

Neil Stevenson was a tutor at Manchester School of Architecture during the ‘nineties (now at Sheffield Hallam). He combines experience of practice with a generous approach to teaching, a wide knowledge of artistic culture and an ability to stop, look and draw. To mark his fiftieth birthday Neil undertook the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. He has scanned and published his camino sketchbook … Photoset

Following the visit of MA Urban Design students from MMU to our fair city this week, I offer an aerial photo set of Preston in the ‘fifties (before the clearance of factories, mills and much else).

All the photos

Everybody is talking about it, so here’s a photo set of Nottingham Contemporary on the opening weekend. People were queuing to get in on the day and the visitor numbers continue to be healthy. It’s a serious piece of architecture that responds well to the scale of Middle Pavement and Weekday Cross, although I am slightly troubled by the massing of the building from the uphill approach - Nottingham is littered with buildings which turn their backs to the main vehicular routes and the gallery appears to do the same, but in a highly crafted way (see picture below for the approach up the hill).

The lace pattern is apparently controversial for some people. I wish it had been more explicit, less tentative. From a distance it is a milky sheen. The architects didn’t want to be ‘Pop’. The overall elevational treatment with it’s folds, borders and panels reminded me of Joseph Hoffmann’s work. To pursue the Secessionist theme, is the ribbed golden container on the roof a reference to Olbrich’s ‘golden cabbage’?

I was not allowed to photograph the interior. It is very good - simple, robust, well-lit.

The best article I have read about the building is by Ellis Woodman in Building Design.

Flickr Photoset

Superimposed red line marking the axis between the Thiepval arch (east) and the River Ancre (west) in the Somme region.

Note the persistent marks of trench systems below the cultivation.

Early evening in late August 2009 and the sun is almost coinciding with the east/west axis. The light glances off surfaces and catches exposed corners.

The Thiepval Arch, The Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. Inscribed with the names of 73,357 British soldiers of the Somme campaign whose remains were not identified. Unveiled August 1932. Architect: Edwin Lutyens.

More pictures of Thiepval in August: Photoset

Get the full picture at Iconic Photos 

The avant garde absolutely gushes: TimesOnline 

Via The Footnotes of Mad Men, glimpses of the Casa Malaparte in Le Mepris

The B.Arch. studio presentations are being held on 22 September 2009. If you would like a preview/reminder of the CiA studio proposal go to THIS LINK

Sally Stone and Eamonn Canniffe are currently participating in a joint architecture/archaeology workshop with schools of architecture from IUAV, Barcelona and Palermo. If you are interested in their architectural and gastronomic adventures, you can follow their Twitter feeds:

Sally Stone Eamonn Canniffe

Three Mirage 2000 jets of L’armée de l’air fly north towards the Franche Comte/Lorraine border in this odd postcard from Ronchamp*. The aerial view is not particularly flattering to a building that was designed to be approached from the slopes below. The previous chapel on the site was bombed by the Luftwaffe during the Second World War and the remains were used as building materials in the new building. I suppose the chapel is being protected rather than threatened by the jets but what is the meaning of the title on the postcard back: flagrant delit?**

Mirage fighters were a feature of motorway travel in France in the ‘seventies and, flying in formation above the Autoroute near Dijon, evoked the over-dubbed delights of The Aeronauts*** a Saturday morning TV programme shown alongside Robinson Crusoe and The Flashing Blade.

*bought in the early ‘nineties and found in ‘the bottom drawer’
** in flagrante delicto
*** Les Chevaliers du Ciel in France (link)