Peter Cook, Gavin Robotham and Lorene Faure
The Royal Academy of Arts will be hosting our exhibition, Paper City: Urban Utopias from next Friday, 31 July. It is an opportunity for us to share the extraordinary images that artists, architects, illustrators and designers have contributed to our back-page ‘Paper City’, since its introduction in September 2006.
Contributors, including artist Emily Allchurch, cartoonist Steven Appleby, artist Marc Atkins, and architect, Ian Ritchie, were invited to articulate their ideas about the city, suggesting their hopes, fears and possibilities for the future. We provided them with a brief that emphasized original, innovative thinking: the only constraint was that the size had to match that of a Blueprint page (232mm x 314 mm).
The exhibition will display around 40 of the Paper City images; each of which will be printed as multiple copies and bound as pads. This unusual exhibition, designed by graphic designers Bibliothèque, allows visitors to tear off their favourite images from the pads and keep them.
James Wines
Alongside the pads, some of the Paper City original artworks will also be on display. This includes a delicate pencil and ink drawing by American sculptor and architect James Wines and a hand drawing by Australian architect Barrie Marshall. New commissions from Peter Cook, Chris Orr, Marc Atkins, and RA Schools students Inez de Coo and Rachael Champion will accompany the Paper Cities published in Blueprint magazine.
The final pad of the exhibition will be blank. This is for the visitors to create their own Paper City, which they can then submit into a competition. This competition will be judged at the end of the exhibition period.
Laurie Chetwood
Paper City: Urban Utopias is at the Architecture Space at the Royal Academy of Arts, 31 July – 27 October 2009. Admission is free of charge. The Architecture Space is located adjacent to Royal Academy Restaurant. The exhibition opening times are 10am – 6pm daily (until 10pm Friday). The exhibition is supported by Stephens & George Print Group
