Reliving Chandigarh: The Furniture of Le Corbusier and Jeanerret
The Furniture of Chandigarh in a cavernous underground space at P3, presents a series of 1950s furniture that were part of the buildings Le Corbusier with his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, were responsible for designing. After Indian independence in 1947 and the subsequent partition of India and Pakistan, there was a need for a new administrative [...]
You’re invited to a picnic!
Blueprint Picnic
From 5.30pm, Friday 3 July
Bermondsey Square, London SE1
Challenge the hyper-regulation of public space and celebrate the launch of Blueprint’s August issue. A picnic, with food and entertainment, will take place in one of London’s newest squares, designed by East Architects. In partnership with the East Architects. In partnership with the Manifesto Club’s Freedom Summer.
Food: New restaurant, bar [...]
Press release: Stop the hyper-regulation of public space
Blueprint answers Mayor Johnson’s call for ideas for London’ great spaces: Remove the rules and regulations!
In a series of experiments around London’s squares and piazzas, undercover Blueprint researchers have performed a series of activities to test the limits of public space. The researchers undertook a host of different activities in various guises and logged the [...]
Vitra/CIRECA Workshop Diary: Lessons in Porcelain
Porcelain; the ‘white gold’, a precious material originating in China, brought to Europe by Marco Polo, and whose recipe was a royal secret for many years. It is distinguished by being the only one of the fired-earth family to have a translucent quality, and when tapped it rings like crystal. Its composition was discovered in [...]
Vitra/CIRECA Workshop Diary: Eclecticism and Inspiration
One of the unusual assets of the Vitra Design Museum is its ever expanding collection of buildings on site: contributions from Frank Gehry, Nicholas Grimshaw, Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid, Alvaro Siza, and Jean Prouvé make something like an architectural park. The Boisbuchet site, which is owned and run by the Museum’s director Alexander von [...]
Vitra/CIRECA Workshop Diary: Arrivals, Team Work and Andrey Bartenev
I’m at the Domaine de Boisbuchet, in the Poitou-Charente region of France, for a week – already I’m wishing I had longer – to participate in a design workshop run by the Vitra Design Museum. Actually it’s day 1 and a half – after a plane, a train and a coach ride which took me [...]
Gabriele Bramante on the Birdy coffee machine
Officially this coffee machine is called Essenza, but it is deliberately designed to look like a character and so has affectionately come to be known as the Birdy because of its broad shoulders, its oversized beak and its large pouch collecting, not nuts, but disused coffee capsules.
Already a design icon, I’m convinced that the Birdy - which was [...]
Architect to draw on Fourth Plinth
London architect Tim Bushe of Walker Bushe, is one of 2400 randomly selected people who will become a living monument in Trafalgar Square this summer.
Bushe’s hour on the Fourth Plinth takes place at 4pm, 16 July, and the architect plans to use the time to make a continuous 360 drawing of the square, which he will later [...]
How to hold a meeting in an artwork
I recently had the amazing experience of taking part in a meeting, for the London Cultural Strategy Group (which I joined in November 2008), in front of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica. The setting forms an installation, The Nature of the Beast, by Goshka Macuga at the Whitechapel Gallery (pictured above), which reopened in April. It turns out [...]
The Manifesto Club’s Freedom Summer
Blueprint is taking part in Freedom Summer, a series of events across Europe organised by the Manifesto Club. The programme, which runs until September, aims to take a stand against the over-regulation of everyday life, and celebrate autonomous spaces for people to collaborate, discuss, or just enjoy life. Events range from debates on booze bans [...]
London summer design sales
Those Londoners amongst you who are serious about design but short of cash, will be interested to know that many furniture brands and shops are having summer sales over the next few weeks. A number of bargains are on offer: you can get a Martino Gamper chair for £150, 50 per cent off the original [...]
PEAR: New Architecture Fanzine
P.E.A.R (Paper for Emerging Architecture Research), a new architectural fanzine, was launched last night at The Building Centre. It is the brainchild of Matthew Butcher, Rashid Ali and Julian Krueger; all architects who are also involved in teaching at the Bartlett, Nottingham and Cardiff University respectively. PEAR presents work from contemporary architectural practices, researchers [...]
New Madrid Summer School from the AA and IE
The Architectural Association in collaboration with the Instituto Empresa in Madrid is starting a new summer school initiative in Madrid running from Thursday 16 to Saturday 25 July.
Blueprint will be media partner for the intensive 10-day studio-based workshops. The summer school is open to students, young architects and designers. Participants will investigate new architectural and [...]
Interview: Yona Friedman
The Paris-based architect‘s visions for transport systems and superstructures have influenced generations of artists concerned with utopia. He talked with Tim Abrahams ahead of his second major installation at the Venice Art Biennale (Photography by David Vintiner)
It took Daniel Birnbaum, the curator of the Venice Art Biennale just over four hours to travel from Frankfurt [...]
Tomoko Azumi: innovation and play in design. Book now!
Asia House is offering 2 tickets for the price of 1 on all bookings from Blueprint readers for a talk by Tomoko Azumi next week. The acclaimed Japanese designer will give a unique insight into her career and teaching, and will discuss her recent collaboration with Yamaha and a group of product design students at the RCA to reinvent [...]
Super Contemporary at the Design Museum
Super Contemporary opened last week at the Design Museum, showcasing 15 designs commissioned specifically for the exhibition. Designers, including David Adjaye, Ron Arad, BarberOsgerby, Neville Brody and Thomas Heatherwick, were provided with the opportunity to give something back to the city that inspires them. The exhibition, curated by Daniel Charny, champions post 1960s free-thinking as the catalyst for [...]
Varnishing Day at the RA Summer Show
Adrian Friend of Friend and Company set off with duster and a bottle of Windolene to attend a quaint event known as Varnishing Day, exclusively for exhibitors to the Royal Academy’s Summer Show. Here he describes the experience and suggests some highlights of the Architecture Room.
The opportunity to attend Varnishing Day at the Royal Academy Summer [...]
In The Press: Charles, RIBA and the lost marbles
In an unexpected turn of events, Blueprint itself has been in the news over the last month, resulting in our editor, Vicky Richardson being invited to chair the annual conference of an organisation called Republic on 20 June. After a group of architects called for a boycott of Prince Charles’ anniversary lecture to RIBA, our [...]
Design Prima Opens Today
Today sees the opening of the annual exhibition for inspirational commercial interior products, Design Prima – covering furniture, lighting, textiles, and more – at the Business Design Centre, London. Exhibitors include Vitra, Thonet, Swedese and Hitch Mylius. The show sees the launch of a new coffee table (pictured below) by architectural and design firm Claesson Koivisto [...]
A Letter From Portugal
With an empire centuries older than the British one, the Portuguese can claim to have invented the global village. A more recent Portuguese invention is a new kind of village, where architecture meets golf. At Bom Sucesso (meaning good accomplishment), golfers, long associated with taste due to their traditional trousers, can live in houses designed by distinguished architects in the gated [...]
