Posts Tagged Art
Guardian young arts critics competition 2011: the winners
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on October 12, 2011
Our young critics competition turned up some fearless talent
What makes a great critic? Lots of things: an eye for detail, an instinct for the right adjective, an empathy with audience and artist. A great critic can make a reader feel that they, too, have been there: watching, listening, holding their breath. A great critic's opinion carries conviction; a great critic loves language. And, in a world where everyone has an opinion, and the means to share it, these qualities matter more than ever: a professional 21st-century critic has to look harder, write funnier, be smarter than anyone else.
So it's a tough job, but somebody has to do it – and somebody has to do it after this generation have had their turn. For the fourth year running, we've been looking for the UK's best young critics. We asked for entries in eight categories, and split those into two age groups: under 14, and 14 to 18. Most wanted to write about film, TV, theatre, visual art and music; there were fewer entries for classical, dance and architecture. You told us about your 2011 highlights and lowlights: Bon Iver's "magical" new album, Kevin Spacey's Richard III (not terrifying enough), Gavin Henson's "robot" turn on The Bachelor, the discreet charms of Coventry railway station. You were direct, engaged, enthusiastic, occasionally brutal – and you impressed our judges, who included writer Anthony Horowitz, singer Emmy the Great and Kick–Ass screenwriter Jane Goldman.
In the film category, 13-year-old Francesco Dernie reviewed Project Nim, James Marsh's documentary about the chimp raised as a child, concluding: "I do think he achieved some humanity." For Goldman, this was "the stand-out entry, a beautifully honed balance between information and opinion". Kiera McIntosh-Michaelis's review of Kevin Macdonald's crowdsourced documentary Life in a Day won in the older category. "A little gem that showed natural writing talent," said Goldman.
Among younger pop critics, 13-year-old Holly MacHenry won for her rousing review of Gogol Bordello, with the judges praising its ability to convey the raw excitement of being there ("About halfway through the second song I decided being cool wasn't important and started jumping about"). Julia Smith, 18, was first in the older age group for her review of Bon Iver's recent album. His previous album, For Emma, Forever Ago, she wrote, "hits you right there. You know, there, that space between your head and your heart". Judge Emmy the Great said: "She will doubtless be the sort of music critic who has fans. I am one."
There was a surprising amount of foreign reporting in visual art: Seward Johnson's controversial 26ft Marilyn Monroe in Chicago, two shows at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, ceramics in Switzerland. The Met shows inspired the best writing: 14-year-old Angelica Gottleib's take on Savage Beauty, the Alexander McQueen retrospective ("a marvellous, skeleton-like back-brace … antelope ears crafted from gleaming twigs"); and 12-year-old Freddie Holker's extraordinarily accomplished review of a homage to Lucian Freud, in particular his painting Naked Man, Back View ("Disgusting. That's what I'm thinking, that's my gut instinct.") Of Freddie, art critic Adrian Searle said: "The writing is tight, the descriptions vivid."
It was a strong year for theatre. Thomas Marshall, 16, won the older category with his review of Kevin Spacey's Richard III: "At about 11pm, a hunchbacked man with a leg-brace is hung upside-down, dead, in a darkened room somewhere in London to the applause of hundreds." (This first line had director and judge Katie Mitchell "hooked".) The under-14s group scored the competition's youngest winner, nine-year-old Laura Stevens, whose review of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Stratford used "beautiful imagery to relate what she'd seen, conveying her enthusiasm and insight", said playwright Lucy Prebble.
There was a confidence and swagger to the TV reviews, pleasing our TV editor, Vicky Frost. Hannah Quinn, 17, won for her savagely cynical review of Gavin Henson's The Bachelor ("The end is nigh! A mad scientist has succeeded in creating a robot and an army of clones!"). Horowitz said: "This is a critic who puts her personality right on the page – great fun to read."
Dance critic Rachel Balmer, 16, wrote one of the bounciest, liveliest reviews. Riverdance, she said, was "the oddest genre of theatrical art", featuring "singing, a bout of flamenco, a candelit vigil … some Irish-style disco dancing complete with cartwheels … I told you it was odd." Our classical music winner was Rosie Busiakiewicz, 18, who reviewed a new recording of Shostakovich's 8th String Quartet.
In the final category, architecture, judge Ted Cullinan declared Michael Sackur, 13, winner in the younger category, for his "beautifully observed formal critique" of Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin: "Criticism like this is hard to write." Fourteen-year-old Mollie Davidson won the older category for her review of Coventry railway station. This, Cullinan said, was a brilliant summary of the "earnest economical period" of architecture just after the second world war.
The winners will receive a Guardian certificate and a £25 book token; their entries are published today at guardian.co.uk/culture. Picking an overall winner was tough, but with Alan Yentob, creative director of the BBC, and Georgina Henry, head of guardian.co.uk, we agreed on 12-year-old Freddie Holker for his amazingly mature critique of Lucian Freud. I would conclude by saying something along the lines of the kids are all right – but that's just the kind of cliche our young critics know to avoid.
• Winner Freddie Holker will be writing for G2 later this year.
All that glisters: how Rafael Viñoly built a bling building around a Roman ruin – video
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on October 4, 2011
Architect Rafael Viñoly talks about Firstsite, his newly opened arts centre in Colchester, which has been dubbed the golden banana
Stirling prize: Zaha Hadid’s Brixton school beats Olympic velodrome
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on October 1, 2011
Evelyn Grace Academy wins the 16th RIBA Stirling prize, giving Hadid top award for second year running
Architect Zaha Hadid's Z-shaped school in Brixton, south London, has beaten the hot favourite, the Olympic velodrome, to win the 16th annual RIBA Stirling prize for architecture.
Victory for Evelyn Grace academy gives Hadid's practice a Stirling prize for the second year running, although it is the architect's first major building project in Britain. Last year her practice won for the Maxxi Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome.
"Schools are among the first examples of architecture that everyone experiences and have a profound impact on all children as they grow up," said Hadid. "I am delighted that the Evelyn Grace academy has been so well received by all its students and staff."
The prestigious £20,000 award, handed over by the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Architects' Journal and construction products manufacturer Benchmark at a ceremony in Rotherham, is intended to celebrate the best new European building "built or designed in Britain". It was expected to go to Michael Hopkins's eye-catching east London Olympic venue, popularly known as "the Pringle". But Hadid's school triumphed with its bold approach to solving a difficult problem: how to bring four schools together on a small site under one "academy" umbrella. Evelyn Grace had to be squeezed into 1.4 hectares, while the average secondary school takes up more like 8ha. The school is also situated in the area of the capital with the highest crime rate in western Europe.
Rather than building the sort of glass atrium that has been adopted by many new schools, Hadid's team opted to spend the money on better-lit classrooms and corridors with more space. But her design does have one remarkable, central feature: a bright-red 100m sprint track running right through the site. There is also a multiuse Astroturf pitch, while another quiet corner is home to a wildflower garden.
RIBA president Angela Brady, who chaired the judges, said: "The Evelyn Grace academy is an exceptional example of what can be achieved when we invest carefully in a well-designed new school building. The result – a highly imaginative, exciting academy that shows the students, staff and local residents that they are valued – is what every school should and could be."
The school is run by the Ark (Absolute Return for Kids) Academy organisation, a charity set up by Arpad "Arki" Busson, the hedge-fund multimillionaire.
The final shortlist of the six rival structures competing for this year's award included not just Hopkins's velodrome, but Rab Bennetts's careful remodelling of the Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres in Stratford-on-Avon, an innovative cultural centre in Derry, the re-facing and transforming of a 1980s office building in north London, and the extension of the Folkwang Museum in Essen, Germany, by David Chipperfield Architects, who have also won the Stirling prize before. This was the first year previous entrants were eligible for consideration and all six shortlisted practices had been shortlisted before.
Full coverage of the prizegiving ceremony will be broadcast in a special edition of BBC2's Culture Show on Sunday.
Stirling prize: Zaha Hadid’s Brixton school beats Olympic velodrome
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on October 1, 2011
Evelyn Grace Academy wins the 16th RIBA Stirling prize, giving Hadid top award for second year running
Architect Zaha Hadid's Z-shaped school in Brixton, south London, has beaten the hot favourite, the Olympic velodrome, to win the 16th annual RIBA Stirling prize for architecture.
Victory for Evelyn Grace academy gives Hadid's practice a Stirling prize for the second year running, although it is the architect's first major building project in Britain. Last year her practice won for the Maxxi Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome.
"Schools are among the first examples of architecture that everyone experiences and have a profound impact on all children as they grow up," said Hadid. "I am delighted that the Evelyn Grace academy has been so well received by all its students and staff."
The prestigious £20,000 award, handed over by the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Architects' Journal and construction products manufacturer Benchmark at a ceremony in Rotherham, is intended to celebrate the best new European building "built or designed in Britain". It was expected to go to Michael Hopkins's eye-catching east London Olympic venue, popularly known as "the Pringle". But Hadid's school triumphed with its bold approach to solving a difficult problem: how to bring four schools together on a small site under one "academy" umbrella. Evelyn Grace had to be squeezed into 1.4 hectares, while the average secondary school takes up more like 8ha. The school is also situated in the area of the capital with the highest crime rate in western Europe.
Rather than building the sort of glass atrium that has been adopted by many new schools, Hadid's team opted to spend the money on better-lit classrooms and corridors with more space. But her design does have one remarkable, central feature: a bright-red 100m sprint track running right through the site. There is also a multiuse Astroturf pitch, while another quiet corner is home to a wildflower garden.
RIBA president Angela Brady, who chaired the judges, said: "The Evelyn Grace academy is an exceptional example of what can be achieved when we invest carefully in a well-designed new school building. The result – a highly imaginative, exciting academy that shows the students, staff and local residents that they are valued – is what every school should and could be."
The school is run by the Ark (Absolute Return for Kids) Academy organisation, a charity set up by Arpad "Arki" Busson, the hedge-fund multimillionaire.
The final shortlist of the six rival structures competing for this year's award included not just Hopkins's velodrome, but Rab Bennetts's careful remodelling of the Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres in Stratford-on-Avon, an innovative cultural centre in Derry, the re-facing and transforming of a 1980s office building in north London, and the extension of the Folkwang Museum in Essen, Germany, by David Chipperfield Architects, who have also won the Stirling prize before. This was the first year previous entrants were eligible for consideration and all six shortlisted practices had been shortlisted before.
Full coverage of the prizegiving ceremony will be broadcast in a special edition of BBC2's Culture Show on Sunday.
Hampton Court roundels restored – and their humble origins revealed
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on September 28, 2011
After years of detective work and months of restoration, four of the palace's 16th-century roundels are about to be unveiled
Science has revealed a surprising truth about some of the earliest and most spectacular Renaissance sculptures in Britain: the stern-faced 16th-century Roman worthies scowling down from the walls of Hampton Court palace were made out of London clay like any common house brick.
Since they were made by Giovanni da Maiano, a contemporary of Michelangelo, they were assumed to have been shipped from Italy. However forensic analysis of minute particles of the clay, part of a restoration programme which has saved some from collapse, has proved he must have set up a workshop in London in the 1520s when his grand patrons included Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII.
"Moving to London was his fundamental error," Kent Rawlingson, a buildings conservator, said. "These are really outstanding works by a major artist, but if he had stayed in Italy or even worked in the court of the king of France, there is no doubt that he would be far better known today."
After his time in England, Maiano vanished: there is no record of further commissions, or even when and where he died.
The roundels were carved in fantastic detail, which would not have been appreciated properly from ground level, but almost 500 years in the open air beside the Thames had taken its toll. Some were losing their hair and their laurel wreaths, others were riddled with cracks, the terracotta in places crumbling back into clay.
Now after years of detective work, and months of painstaking conservation including hand-carving replacement features in situ, the four judged most at risk are about to be unveiled, looking better than they have in centuries. They will then have to be boxed in again within weeks to protect them from the first winter frost. Work judged less urgent will follow on the other heads.
Wolsey commissioned the roundels for Hampton Court, the home he made so disastrously magnificent that it attracted the covetousness of his king, and became a royal palace. Maiano's bill survives: he charged Wolsey £2.6.8d each – plus 20 shillings each to install them.
The restoration work includes the plaques with their names, which are almost certainly wrong. Known for centuries as the 11 Roman emperors, Rawlingson is convinced they are really military heroes and leaders including Scipio, Pompey, and a youthful Alexander the Great.
He has been trying to piece together their history: they were moved several times at Hampton Court, with inevitable damage, so some are 16th-century roundels in 19th-century frames, others 19th-century roundels in original frames.
Henry VIII placed some on a hunting lodge he gave to Anne Boleyn, and two remain in the improbable surroundings of Hanworth. One was recorded discovered "in a dark closet", of which the palace has thousands, in the 18th century. Two more came from a lost Tudor landmark, the Holbein Gate at Whitehall, demolished in the 18th century for road widening.
"Since the palace first opened to visitors in the 18th century, they've always been admired – but we've never been exactly sure what they really were," Rawlingson said. "The truth is they are masterpieces of Renaissance sculpture, hiding in plain sight."
Keep calm and carry on like Europeans
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on September 28, 2011
I could not detect even a whiff of panic about the euro's future on a recent visit to Florence. Maybe history has taught our continental comrades to have faith in economic unity
Europe. It has a lot of strengths, you know.
In one of the continent's most charismatic cities, Florence, the other day, there was not much obvious sign of panic about the supposed impending collapse of the euro. Anyway, euros were changing hands in large numbers at cafes, restaurants and museums. The Strozzi Palace, with its new exhibition on Medici money, loomed as grandly as it must have done when this most austerely opulent of all Florentine houses was completed in the early 1500s. The same sense of continuity and underlying calm breathed throughout the city's historic heart at the end of what looked to me like a far busier summer season than that of recession-shaken 2009 when I was last here.
Making any predictions right now about the economy would be dumb for an economist, let alone an art critic. So let's acknowledge straight off that things look dire. Catastrophe seems to be impending. And yet ... It has not actually impended yet, has it? The euro has been pronounced as toast by Eurosceptics – and many others – but some people have been saying that all summer, and so far, Europe seems just that little bit more resilient than it is supposed to be.
So here are some – cultural – reasons to wonder if Europe really rests on the edge of an abyss, or if it is, in fact, sitting on a vast historical jackpot of democracy and stability that will see it through.
Most continental Europeans (unlike the British and Americans) have a heritage of military occupation that smoulders under the rebuilt hearts of ancient cities. The second world war saw Nazi rule across the continent. This may not seem such a benign cultural heritage. But it is one reason why many Europeans will always see the value of a big, united, democratic Europe without border controls and – yes – with the fiscal pillars of nationalism submerged in a single currency.
You can find the traces of that history even in beautiful Florence. Visitors might momentarily wonder why, in such a well-preserved city centre, one big patch of modern buildings surrounds the Ponte Vecchio. It is the result of the second world war battle for the city, captured in Rossellini's film Paisà. Of course, Italy, Germany and France have reasons to be glad they are part of an economic union that makes a return to such days unimaginable.
Britain's very different wartime experience of isolated island heroism has made us at once more obsessed with the 1940s and less aware of what they really meant.
But Europe was reborn after 1945 and laid claim to its incredible cultural achievements. Art galleries and architecture, urban planning and modern welfare states all combine to make European cities such as Florence and their surrounding countrysides far better places to live than, say, most American cities – it is continental Europe that regularly tops "quality of life" surveys. Then there is production and economic creativity where Italian designer flair stands out even as its economy gets a bad press. Is the EU really all busted and banged up and ready for the final curtain?
I wonder.
Antonine wall fills gaps in story of Roman occupation of Britain
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on September 20, 2011
Wall that once marked Roman empire's border in Scotland will give up some of its secrets for Glasgow's Hunterian museum
One of the Roman empire's most enigmatic monuments – the Antonine wall between the firths of Forth and Clyde in Scotland, which briefly marked the northernmost point of the empire between the 140s and 160s AD – is set to reveal some of its secrets.
The elaborately carved sculptures from the wall, brought together for the first time, form the centrepiece of a new gallery at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, which has reopened after two years' refurbishment.
The Antonine wall was built early in the reign of Antoninus Pius, Hadrian's successor as emperor, who pushed the Roman border north from Hadrian's wall in order to secure a military victory that would play well back in Rome. According to the director of the Hunterian, Professor David Gaimster: "It was an act of propaganda by an emperor who had not held any significant military command, and its success ensured his position."
The soldiers of the II Augusta, VI Victrix and XX Valeria Victrix legions who built the mighty turf wall – many parts of which can still be seen – carved elaborate "distance slabs" commemorating the sections they had built.
The sculptures are, in general, more elaborate and richly decorated than their counterparts on Hadrian's wall, featuring such scenes as Victory placing a laurel wreath on a Roman legionary standard, and the distinctive mascots of the soldiers' legions: a running boar for the XX; a Pegasus and a Capricorn (after the Emperor Augustus's star sign) for the VI.
The sculptures also clearly project the move north as a splendid military victory: several depict Caledonians being trampled by Roman cavalry, or simply crouching in submission, bound and naked.
The northernmost tip of the empire is frequently imagined as an inhospitable, barbarous zone for its occupiers – but that image is far from the truth, according to Gaimster. The occupiers were, he said, enjoying "as sophisticated a Mediterranean lifestyle as legionaries would have done anywhere else in the empire".
For example, there were bathhouses along the wall, including in what is now the Glasgow suburb of Bearsden, where research has shown the occupiers were eating a diet including olives, figs and wine. Also in the new gallery are fragments of a richly decorated mausoleum found near Kirkintilloch, carved with images of togaed figures reclining on couches. Other objects include precious fragments of glass, delicate intaglios, red Samianware for dining, and – as fresh as the day they were made – adult and children's leather sandals. There is also a hint towards the multi-ethnic makeup of the Roman occupiers: a 15-year-old Middle Eastern boy called Salamenes died near Kirkintilloch, and his tombstone was erected by his father. A single woman – Verecunda – is recorded by her tombstone.
Indeed, the indigenous aristocracy seemed to be enjoying prestige goods from the Roman world before the area was annexed. An Iron Age settlement at Leckie in Stirlingshire has yielded finds of Roman Samianware, glass and a delicate mirror.
Sixteen of the 19 surviving distance slabs have been put on display. The missing three – one is in Edinburgh's National Museum of Scotland, one at Glasgow's Kelvingrove art gallery, and one, having been sold to America, perished in the 1896 fire in Chicago – are represented by casts.
They have all had a richly varied history since their brief service for Rome in the second century. Several were acquired by Scottish antiquaries, and given to the University of Glasgow as early as the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, before the Hunterian was founded in 1807. One was seen built into the side of a cottage in 1603, and another turned up in a farmer's field in 1969, and Emeritus Professor Lawrence Keppie, an expert on the wall, remembers one of his first jobs at the museum: cleaning off the whitewash with which had been splashed during its sojourn in the farmyard.
The wild and beautiful Lake District’s ‘serenely sane, practical and rational homes’
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on September 19, 2011
The Northerner's arts ambassador Alan Sykes pads round an exhibition about two architects who dreaded what Victorian furniture would do to their austerely lovely work.
Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott and Charles Voysey were leading followers of Philip Webb as arts & crafts architect-designers in late Victorian and Edwardian times. Both men designed houses near Lake Windermere in the Lake District. In Baillie Scott's case, Blackwell has been restored to its former glory by the Lakeland Arts Trust (the people who run Kendal's Abbot Hall Art Gallery) and now stands proudly above the eastern side of the lake, boasting an impressive series of temporary exhibitions, including this one. The Yorkshireman Voysey's Broad Leys, a couple of miles up the lake, is now the home of the Windermere Motor Boat Racing Club, and can also be used as a luxury guest house.
Baillie Scott said, in a phrase which would probably irk some of the more extravagant contemporary architects, "the claims of commonsense are paramount".
Broad Leys shows its L shape and its great windows open to the west over Windermere, and also the meticulous attention to the finest detail that marked both architects – there is even a cast iron ventilation grille which somebody has adapted to use as a trivet. The normally curmudgeonly Pevsner was clearly a fan, describing it as Voysey's masterpiece and adding that it is "overlooking Windermere, with … three distinct large curved bay windows stretching from the ground to the first floor, providing magnificent views over the lake."
Blackwell reminds us how lucky the Lakeland Arts Trust was with how much of the original interior survived its period as a girls' school and as offices – we can even see the original keys and coat-hooks. The quality of the building and its setting have long been acknowledged – the German architect Hermann Muthesius described Blackwell as '…one of the most attractive creations that the new movement in house-building has produced' and credited Baillie Scott with the 'new idea of the interior as an autonomous work of art...each room is an individual creation."
Both architects were keen that their vision would not stop with the physical structure of their buildings, but would go down to the smallest details of fittings and furnishings – as Baillie Scott put it: "every architect who loves his work must have his enthusiasm dampened by a prophetic vision of the hideous furniture with which his client will fill his rooms." He and Voysey got round this by having "formed styles of their own in room decoration, designing everything necessary, from chairs and tables to carpets, wall-papers and window-curtains" – they even designed inkwells and clocks - and both men hated extravagant ornamentation: as Voysey put it, in a domestic interior "we cannot be too simple." His near contemporary Lutyens said: "No detail was too small for Voysey's volatile brain, and it was not so much his originality – though original he was – as his consistency that proved a source of such delight"
The mediaevalism of the arts and crafts movement influenced the size of the rooms: at Blackwell the great entrance hall even includes a minstrels' gallery – although the huge copper light fittings which would have hung over a billiards table do not strike a very Tudor note.
Baillie Scott, a few years younger than Voysey, was clearly an admirer and influenced by his work. In a generous tribute in "The Studio" magazine in 1907, he wrote "If one were asked to sum up in a few words the scope and purposes of Mr. Voysey's work, one might say that it consists mainly in the application of serenely sane, practical and rational ideas to home making… And this beauty … is a beauty of which we will never tire and which is above the changing whims of fashion. Our modern public buildings, which are designed merely to impress the vulgar with histrionic and meaningless architectural features, fail to achieve even this unworthy aim."
Seeing the breadth and vision of the two architects, especially seeing it within the context of the masterpiece of one of them, makes one realize quite how narrow and shoddy most "design and build" contemporary architecture is.
MH Baillie Scott and CFA Voysey, the Lake District and beyond: Arts & Crafts Houses and Furnishings is on at Blackwell, Bowness-on-Windermere, until October 30th.
Campaign to save historic hospital building
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on September 19, 2011
After exhausting all other avenues, developer Urban Splash is seeking permission to demolish Ancoats dispensary
A derelict dispensary that has long been a part of the industrial fabric of Manchester and was immortalised on canvas by LS Lowry could be demolished despite a campaign to save it.
Ancoats Dispensary, which was built in the late 19th century to treat patients who did not qualify for the poor law hospitals but who couldn't afford medical bills, is the only remaining building on the Ancoats Hospital site in Manchester. It is Grade 2 listed and requires permission to be demolished.
Developers Urban Splash is asking Manchester city council if it can to demolish the building after exhausting all other possibilities. It will be discussed at a council meeting next month. The dispensary is in a poor state and would require up to £3m to bring it up to modern standards according to the company.
But campaigners launched on an online petition to save it that is supported by the Victorian Society. A Facebook group has also been launched and, so far, it has 100 likes.
The Northwest Development Agency had planned to put money in to save the building's facade, but it fell by the wayside after the NWDA was scrapped by the government.
Heritage Works, a charity which specialises in finding new ways to preserve old buildings, carried out a study to see if it could find interest in the building.
But despite a number of organisations coming forward, the cost of maintaining the dispensary has deterred them.
LS Lowry famously painted it in 1952 in his work Ancoats Hospital Outpatients' Hall. The painting remained in the city and is now at the Whitworth art gallery.
The hospital has long been a source of community pride. When its casualty department was closed in 1987, residents staged a sit-in. The hospital finally closed fully in 1996 and the dispensary is the only remaining building.
But Chris Costelloe, conservation adviser for the Victorian Society, said: "Ancoats Dispensary must be saved. This last remaining fragment of Ancoats' heritage is an impressive survivor in an area that has already lost most of its historic buildings. It must not become the victim of short-term economic concerns."
The Society believes there is insufficient justification for the destruction of the Grade 2-listed building and is urging Manchester city council to refuse consent. In the application Urban Splash focuses on the current development climate, rather than taking a medium term view as required by Government planning policy, and it considers the building in isolation and not as a relatively small part of a much larger development site.
Costelloe added: "The dispensary needs some investment to be made safe and watertight, but one day it could and should be the heart of a regenerated Ancoats. The case for demolition has not been made."
An Urban Splash spokeswoman said: "Urban Splash made the regrettable decision to make an application to demolish Ancoats Dispensary following an exhaustive three years search for a viable use to save the building. The application to demolish the building will be heard on the 27th October by Manchester's planning committee.
"Over the last three years we have looked at a variety of options including conversion to apartments, conversion to offices and even conversion into an art gallery. We have invested over £1 million in the building. Unfortunately the wider economic conditions have meant that none of these options has been commercially viable.
"The greatest chance of saving the building came in late 2009 with a grant of £1m from the Regional Development Agency and work was started under the terms of that contract. Following the abolition of the RDA by the incoming government, this was one of the many contracts that was axed in an effort by the coalition to save public money, even though the contract works were 8 weeks underway.
"This was the last straw for the building and the reason the application to demolish has been made in order to ensure public safety as the building continues to deteriorate.
"On 1st September, Urban Splash were served with a s77(2) notice of the Building Act 1984 which obliges the company to undertake emergency repairs as 'the building has significantly deteriorated and urgent remedial repairs are required'. These works include the taking down of the central tower and the removal of the top floor arched windows and supporting coping stones.
"These works will be undertaken this week and weekend and the materials will be photographed, catalogued and stored in accordance with the requirements and full co-operation of Manchester city council's conservation officer. This is absolutely not the start of the demolition of the building which cannot be commenced until (and if) consent is received on the 27th."
The developer says it continues to work closely and are in talks with Manchester city council to exhaust any avenues that may still remain open to us in an attempt to find a solution that will mean that the building will still be saved.
Hungry for design? Take a seat at the London design festival
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on September 14, 2011
From bizarre banquets to a Lego greenhouse, there's more to the capital's design event than chairs. Here are some highlights
If the words "design festival" bring to mind a big room full of 8,000 different types of chair, things have moved on. Having decided eight years ago that design needed to get out more – out of the showrooms and out of its obsession with chairs – the London design festival is now more of a city-wide cultural event, exploiting the virtual boundlessness of its stated subject. There's too much to keep track of, 300 events over the next nine days, so here are some highlights.
Marcel Wanders
If you're after some design celebrity, look no further than Wanders, the Dutch designer who's as charming as he is protean. He's the designer you'd want to be: he's fashionably refashioned every conceivable household object, and boutique hotels are queuing up for his Midas touch. He leads this year's programme of festival breakfast talks, and he'll also be found at the Galeria Illy, alongside the likes of Marina Abramovic, Martin Parr, Ross Lovegrove and David Adjaye. Meanwhile you'll find a submerged Moooi showroom, complete with Wanders's mermaids, at Tom Dixon's Dock.
Perspectives: St Paul's Cathedral
How does master of minimalism John Pawson respond to the baroque majesty of St Paul's Cathedral? By showing people what is already there, he says. His intervention is in the Geometric Staircase, a spiralling stone space not usually open to the public. By putting a gigantic lens at the bottom and a gigantic convex mirror at the top, Pawson enables visitors to take in more than the unaided eye ever could, and appreciate Wren's engineering genius anew.
Textile Field
The V&A is a key venue for the festival, as signified by the spiralling wooden lattice temporarily installed at the Cromwell Road entrance, courtesy of AL_A, Amanda Levete Architects. Special exhibitions, events and installations are going on throughout the building but one highlight has to be Textile Field, by French stars Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. They've taken over the V&A's Raphael gallery, and installed a giant undulating carpet of bright colours. The purpose is not just to transform the space but to give visitors a new perspective from which to appreciate Raphael's works. How selfless.
Secret Sensory Suppers
The fabulous Masonic Temple at the Andaz hotel is a novel design venue, and it's inspired three teams to reinvent the art of feasting in this design event for all the senses. First up, virtuoso jellymongers Bompas & Parr serve up an appropriately occultish feast to accompany a screening of Jodorowsky's psychedelic brainmelter The Holy Mountain. A processional ice phallus is promised. Food blogger Caroline Hobkinson dispenses with conventional eating implements, and sound sculptors Silent Studio promise a sonically enhanced banquet.
Noma Bar: Cut It Out
Genius illustrator and regular Guardian contributor Noma Bar presents a one-man show of his distinctive figure-ground works, and gives you the chance to create your own, thanks to a bespoke cut-out machine in the shape of a giant dog. Visitors can feed it all manner of materials – paper, rubber, etc.
Lego Greenhouse
It's exactly what it says, but still sounds intriguing doesn't it? This is the brainchild of inventive young Brit Sebastian Bergne, who's installed the greenhouse in the piazza of Covent Garden. There's no cheating: it's a fully functioning structure made of nothing but Lego, with real plants inside. At night, lit from within, it will look even more remarkable, he promises.
Made By Britain: Vitsoe
Let's see if George Osborne's championing of British design makes a difference, but the manufacturers of Dieter Rams's timeless 606 shelving system are the first to receive the official stamp of approval. Vitsoe still makes 95% of its components in Britain, and its healthy exports are just what the nation needs. Vitsoe celebrates its heritage with a special installation at its West End store. Look out for future British design talent at the V&A's British-ish exhibition.
100% Design
If all you're really after is a nice new chair, this is the place you're most likely to find it. It's also where you're most likely to feel like you're in a "proper" design festival, Milan-style, as 400 leading designers and manufacturers pack out Earl's Court with their latest wares. On the chair front, look out for new designs by architect David Chipperfield, Barber Osgerby and Lloyd Pearson. Or for a more relaxed design fair, try the Tramshed.