Exploring some of the city's best loved - or most loathed - buildings
Doors: 7pm.
SIMON PHIPP's extraordinary black and white photographs celebrate London's Brutalist architecture, created in a'period of optimism and community, now buried under almost half a century of privatisation and individualism'
Author THADDEUS ZAPANCIC has explored how the controversial style that emerged in the mid-20th century, left an indelible mark on the urban landscape of the city.
Its raw concrete and imposing geometric forms spawned some of the city's most striking examples of modernism that have made, or marred the metropolis. A selection of the best loved might include the Barbican, the National Theatre, Trellick Tower, the Royal College of Physicians, Brunel University and the Alexandra Road estate.
A role call of the most controversial (and now demolished) would include Robin Hood Gardens, Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre, Pimlico School and the Thamesmead South estate.
Simon and Thaddeus explore whether they were ideological impositions dismissive of ordinary human scale, or bold statements challenging conventional notions of beauty and functionality; the creations of egocentric architects wilfully blind to the social problems they might foster or raw and uncompromising monuments that take time to love.
SIMON PHIPPS born in Leeds, is an artist based In London. He is a graduate in sculpture from the Royal College of Art and and an acclaimed photographer of post-war modernist architecture and design. He is the award winning author of a number of books including Brutal London, Finding Brutalism, Concrete Poetry, Brutal North, Outer Brutal London and the recently published (2024) Brutal Wales / Cymru Friwtalaidd.
THADDEUS ZAPANCIC is a Slovenian-born writer and translator. He has lived in London since 1991. For the first 14 years he worked as a radio producer with the BBC World Service. He is now about one third through his project, London Modernism with his latest book London Estates- 'the most comprehensive photographic document of the London council estate, with fascinating images from every London borough and the City, featuring some 300 estates built between 1947 and 1981.'
