Cathy's Art Diary

Confusing exhibition at the Royal Academy in their Architecture Window space looking at a nomadic studio commissioned by Ukrainian arts foundation in exile, IZOLYATSIA, to offer a space for artists visiting Kyiv. The work is a collaboration between artist James Capper with designer Thomas Pearce and architect Greg Storrar, and is an 8m long inhabitable space on hydraulic legs so it can move. It seems to contain tools and set into the walls and the outer shell shows their outline. It all seems like an interesting idea but I couldn’t work out if it had actually been made or was just a prototype. I know the arts are important to morale in the Ukraine but I wasn’t convinced this was the answer to the country’s problems. Closes 29   November 2025

Interesting exhibition at the British Museum introducing five possible redesigns of their west wing. The show was held in the Reading Room, which it is always magical to enter, and consisted of architects’ models of the five ideas. The space under review represents over a third of their displays, and currently includes the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon Sculptures and the Assyrian Lion Hunt. I’m not convinced that some of the designs would give more and better space for display they seemed to concentrate more on providing prestige public space which seems a common theme of museum refurbishment. It’s great to get more people to come but surely you want to entice them to look at the objects and research. I think I would have found it useful to have a model of what the space is like now to make more direct comparisons. There was a plan but I found it hard to visualise how that related to the new ideas. Closed 2 March 2025    

Interesting online discussion from the Victoria and Albert Museum on Jewish country houses. The group brought together the editors of a new book on the topic, Natalie Livingstone and Juliet Carey, with the photographer for the work, Helene Binet, as well as biographer of the Rotheschild women, Abigail Green, all ably chaired by Ollie Cox, head of academic partnerships at the museum. Livingstone and Carey began by outlining the reasons for the book and how it came about with 17 authors each writing a chapter on a house from England and around Europe. They outlined the main themes and introduced us to some of the houses. Binet then explained her working practices and how she looked for aspects of a house that were less well known and reflected the people who owned it, rather than the architecture, in her photographs. Green talked about the roles of two Rothschild women, Hannah and Charlotte, in developing and using the houses. There was a good discussion with an insightful Q...

Fragmented pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery by Minsuk Cho. I found this year’s pavilion disappointing. I’d liked the press photographs of it from the air forming a star shape but from the ground it felt disjointed with few angles from where you could see it as a whole. I liked the pink stained glass entrance from the gallery but the library space felt like an add on and as an x-librarian I don’t like things which try to reinvent a form which is under threat, just support the libraries you do have! I’m afraid I am a grumpy old what not and found the climbing frame element annoying. In previous years the pavilion has been a haven of peace and quiet but this encouraged noise. There was also little comfortable space to sit. Closed 27 October 2024 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard  

Thin exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at new ideas for housing design in London and Paris. I say thin as it was rather complicated but badly described. Evidently it showed completed and live projects by architect Nichola Barrington-Leach reflecting on the Parisian housing projects designed from the 1960s to 1980s by pioneering French architect Renée Gailhoustet. There were models and drawings but I wasn’t sure what any of them were. The show was in a newly designed space called The Architecture Window consisting of a large black box with doors which could be opened onto the interior space. It could work well but it needs better explanations. Closes 22 September 2024    

Stimulating discussion at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival on the role of architecture and public space in society. Thomas Heatherwick introduced us to his ideas about humanising the built environment. He talked about the emotion buildings inspire and how many buildings are designed to be looked at from a distance whereas we mainly experience them by walking past. He talked about how the average life span of a commercial building in Britain is 40 years. Demolition is wasteful and disruptive so how to we create buildings which people won’t want to pull down. He felt we need a national conversation about architecture and to change the narrative of the construction industry that the public are ignorant. I loved the call to alms for architects that they need to stop speaking “archibollocks”.  

Fascinating two week online course from ARTscapades looking at the development of the Gothic style in France. Jana Gajdošov from Sam Fogg Limited and the Victoria and Albert Museum lead us clearly through four lectures, the first three grouping cathedrals chronologically and stylistically and the last focusing on Notre Dame often seen as the pinnacle of the style. It would have been useful to have a glossary of terms to refer to so I had to do a lot of Googling for spellings when I typed up the notes but as the course progressed you became more familiar with the terms. I liked the way the speaker took us through church by church building up a progression of ideas. I discovered a number of cathedrals I hadn’t heard of before and now have yet another travel itinerary to add to the bucket list.

Dry exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at how Modernist architecture was used in India and West Africa. The show was highlighting a very subtle point about how Britain used this style of architecture after the Second World War to offset calls for independence in colonised countries via funding educational and public infrastructure. This was largely through the work of Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry. It then went on to show how India and Ghana continued to use this style post-independence and firstly employing Drew and Fry but also encouraged the education of local architects. The story was told with models, drawings and photographs but it was a complex philosophy to explain in this way. I did love the section on the design and building of Chandigarh in India and how, as a new modernist city, the architects designed everything from street fittings to furniture for the public buildings. I also liked the beautiful, illustrated letters between Drew and Fry. Closes...

Clear and intriguing online lecture from the London Art History Society on the restoration of the Notre-Dame Cathedral five years after the major fire. Alexandra Gajewski, reviews editor of the Burlington magazine who has a phd in Gothic architecture, led us through what was lost and what survived then the three stages of construction, securing the building, analysis of the fabric and restoration. I hadn’t realised that the site had to be closed for about 5 months early on when it was discovered that the levels of lead were too dangerous to work in the whole structure had to be hoovered to make it safe. I was fascinated to hear how the stonework which survived had to be supported until the roof, which stabilised it was replaced. The first service is planned to take place on 8 December and I will look out for it with interest.

Useful small exhibition at the Design Museum focusing on how three traditional building materials are being used to build sustainable homes. The show looked at wood, straw and stone describing new methods of using them which often boiled down to making bricks with them. I liked the section on engineered timber ie wood pieces processed into a strong composite from which it has been possible to build a 7 storey tower block in 27 days. I will admit though that my photos aren’t that exciting! Closed 20 March 2024

Confusing online course from the London Art History Society on Norman influence on architecture and material culture in Southern Italy. I say confusing because the history and many of the architectural terms were new to me. I think some people on the course had already done others with the speaker John McNeill so were more familiar with some of the background. It would have really helped to have a glossary of terms and an outline of the people and dates involved in the handout for reference. I know my English Norman architecture of the 11th and 12th century quite well so it might have helped me to make comparisons or say more about why they were different. McNeill had some great illustrations, I suspect many of which he had taken himself, which gave a good sense of the buildings many of which were now ruins. He made good use of floor plans but I’m afraid I did confuse them over time and they were very similar. That said I discovered some wonderful sites and have definitely added ...

Delightful structure at the Serpentine Gallery by Lina Ghotmeh. I must say as I walked up to the pavilion I was a bit disappointed as it was quite flat although I did note that it was the same height as the tree canopy that surrounded it. This year it worked best from inside where the finish to the woodwork was beautiful. I loved the crescent shaped tables and lovely stools which evidently reflected the Mediterranean idea of families eating together. Sadly there were only four of us there when I was there so it didn’t stimulate the conversations that it was meant to start. I would also say that a better food selection than coffee in cardboard cups and a few croissants weren’t in the   spirit. I wish I had gone earlier in the season when the weather was better to get the full effect of the light coming through the lattice walls but I did enjoy it even on a dull day. Closed 29 October 2023 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard    

Helpful online lecture from the National Gallery looking at the architectural phases of the gallery. Ralph St Clare-Wade from the University of Cambridge marked the upcoming 200th anniversary of the gallery with this talk which clearly laid out the different phases of its development from it’s start in a house in Pall Mall to the opening of the Sainsbury Wing. Despite visiting at least once a month I had never really thought about how the building grew and the different architects involved. I was particularly intrigued at how the original site was dictated by the presence of a workhouse and barracks behind it and how it was able to expand as both of those were no longer needed. It will certainly make me look at it in a different way in the future.

Disappointing exhibition at the Information Centre of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich looking at the work of Sir Christopher Wren. I say disappointing because it turned out to be poorly explained projects by first year architecture students at the University of Greenwich. I  assumed they had been tasked with studying a spire of a London church by Wren, producing architectural drawings and building a model in cardboard. Few of the drawings mentioned which church was involved and none of the models were labelled. A bit more explanation would have elevated it above show and tell. More interesting was a project by Captivate, a spatial modelling research group, who have built a fly through animation of the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site, including the hospital buildings by Wren. Closed 3 September 2023

Interesting re-creation at the Guildhall Art Gallery of Sir Christopher Wren’s St Paul’s working ‘office’. This exhibition is part of the Wren300 celebrations and was a fun idea but I didn’t think it quite came off. I will admit I missed the section on the upper level which looked dull but may have given more information than was in the room itself. The room has been decorated in Jacobean colours and the walls were covered in facsimiles of Wrens drawings and drawings by modern architects of St Paul’s and other city buildings. There was also a table of modern and Wren-era tools. There was a fun model of a cross section of the dome centring the room which was effective.   It was nice to see a new ‘map’ by Adam Dant describing Wren’s life and times in the City. His work keeps popping up. Closes 15 October 2023

Enlightening public conversation at the National Portrait Gallery between the director of the gallery and the architecture of the recent refurbishment. If you follow my blog you might remember that I was a bit sniffy about the reopening of the gallery so it was really helpful to hear this conversation between the director, Nicholas Cullinan, and the architect, Jamie Forbert. They highlighted some changes which I hadn’t noticed but which might have added to by feeling of confusion, such as the removal of the mezzanine level which used to have a bookshop on it, as well as mentioning some areas I had missed on my first couple of visits and I have subsequently been back to look at. They talked about how helpful it was to have the original drawings for the design of the building and the thinking behind the new entrance and why it wasn’t on that aspect originally, basically because it would have looked out onto slum housing. They also highlighted some things I’d not realise about th...

Fascinating online lecture from the National Gallery looking at the architecture of Venice as represented by the paintings of Canaletto. I must admit from the title and description I thought the talk was going to be wider ranging and look at how artists had used a variety of cities whereas in fact it just looked at Venice. That being said, Oliver Garland took us on tour of the city via the paintings of Canaletto describing the buildings and their structure. I thought I knew a lot about the city but learnt a lot from this talk particularly about the materials that were used and why they were used. I had never realised before that all the palaces where built around four principle spine walls and that facades had no load bearing function to keep the weight spread over the foundations. This meant the façade could have lots of windows and could be adapted and updated easily. This was a nice nostalgic hour imagining a walk round the city and learning a bit more about the place.

Colourful pavilion at the Victoria and Albert Museum to mark the holy month of Ramadan. This is the first Ramadan Pavilion at the gallery and is designed by Shahed Saleem to evoke an abstracted mosque. It is based on prints and drawings in the gallery’s collection and has been used for events and two open Iftars as part of the annual Ramadan Festival curated by Ramadan Tent Project. I loved the way it had simplified elements of a mosque and was open on all sides. It was a shame you couldn’t go in it when I was there but that might have been due to the rain or to stop children using it as a climbing frame. In its bright colours it was a great use of the porcelain floored new entrance square. Closed 1 May 2023

Fascinating small exhibition at the Photographers’   Gallery looking at a series of supplements in Architectural Review in 1969-70 which critiqued 1960s town planning. In eight themed works the journal examined different aspects and themes of urban life and commissioned a different photo journalist or street photographer for each issue. The show had a lovely selection of images as well as copies of some other supplements showing the commissioned covers which all featured versions of a human head. I loved the clarity of the photographs and recognised a number of the photographers from previous shows. Closes 12 June 2023

Austere Pavilion at the Serpentine gallery designed by Theaster Gates. I always enjoy coming to this annual installation and this year's is large and impressive. It’s less open than other years but I love the vista through it and the deep, dark space it creates. Outside there is wood at the bottom and a soft metal like zinc round the top but inside it is all lined in back wood. There are benches around the walls with a lovely set of seven silvered pictures on one side. Reading the commentary it references ceramic kilns both from Stoke on Trent and America as well as various African buildings and the Rothko chapel. I love the fact the pictures are made with a roofing technique as a nod to Gates father who was a roofer. Outside the structure is a bell salvaged from St. Laurence, a landmark Catholic Church that once stood in Chicago's South Side where Gates was born. Closes 16 October 2022 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph Evening Standard