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Here are some events (not organised
by the Society) which may be of interest to members.
LECTURES
London Parks and Gardens Trust Winter Lecture Series
Monday evenings, 7-8 pm (6.30 for a glass of wine) at The Garden Museum (formerly Museum of Garden History) Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1 7LB. Lectures on 13 October and 10 November ONLY at the Swedenborg Society, 20-21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH
13 October 2008 Kristina Clode
The Gardens of Witanhurst in Highgate: Harold Peto’s Forgotten Gem
10 November Mathew Frith
The Gardens and Green Assets of the Peabody Estate
8 December John Davis
Garden Ornaments in Artificial Stone: London Companies in the 18th and 19th Centuries
12 January 2009 Barbara Simms
John Brookes: Fifty Years of Garden and Landscape Design in London
9 February Hazel Conway
Urban Parks: Towards a Viable Future
9 March Hugh Prince
Bushy Park and its Deer
6 April Mike Rowan
Mile End Park – 20th-Century Plan: 21st-Century Vision
How to get to the Garden Museum: BUSES: To Lambeth Road, C10, 3, 344; to Lambeth Palace Road, 77, 507. UNDERGROUND: Lambeth North, Westminster, Waterloo
Tickets: LPGT members and Museum Friends £6.00 (season tickets £36.00), others £7.00 (season tickets £42.00) from the London Parks and Gardens Trust, c/o The Store Yard, St James’s Park, London SW1A 2JB (telephone 0207 839 3969) or at the door.
COURSE
WEST DEAN COLLEGE - CONSERVATION OF CONCRETE
1-4 DECEMBER 2008
This course is intended for architects, surveyors, engineers, contractors and conservators responsible for, or otherwise involved in, the repair, conservation and maintenance of structural and decorative concrete. The course has been prepared in response to the increasing number of historic concrete buildings and artefacts which are beginning to show signs of deterioration and which often have no previous history of repair or maintenance. Concrete conservation is a relatively new and developing area of expertise.
Scope of Training
Development and implementation of a philosophy; “cast stone”; reinforced and pre-stressed concrete; manufacture and construction processes; constituent materials and their characteristics; weathering and decay processes related to detailed design and environment; corrosion of reinforcement.
Survey, recording and assessment of condition; traditional approaches to repair and maintenance; treatment of cracks, corroding reinforcement and surface decay; patch repairs; casting techniques; matching surface finishes; conservation of architectural and freestanding sculpture; cleaning, re-colouring and other surface treatments; maintenance programmes.
Duration
The course extends over three and a half days and includes illustrated lectures, demonstrations and workshop practicals and a site visit.
Course Tutor: Catherine Croft, Director, Twentieth Century Society
Non-residential course fee: £430
Fully residential course fee: From £550
For further information, please contact Liz Campbell at West Dean College
T: 01243 818219
E; liz.campbell@westdean.org.uk
CONFERENCE
Architecture, diplomacy and national identity: Sir Basil Spence and mid-century modernism
Conference at the British School at Rome, 3-5 December 2008
The exhibition Back to the Future: Sir Basil Spence 1907-76, organised by the National Galleries of Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland to mark the centenary of Spence’s birth, has stimulated fresh interest in the work of this once most celebrated of British twentieth-century architects. The individualism and exuberance of Spence’s mature work has arguably more in common with the approach of American architects such as Paul Rudolph and Edward Durrell Stone than with the architecture typical of post-war Britain.
The conference will survey the architecture of Sir Basil Spence in this wider context, focusing on the modes of design developed in the mid-twentieth century for national representational buildings of all kinds, from embassy and parliament buildings to exhibition pavilions at international exhibitions. Historians who have worked on this period and on these topics will discuss Spence’s work – including his British Pavilion at Expo ‘67 in Montreal, his concept for the ‘Beehive’ (the extension to Parliament House in Wellington, New Zealand), and his British Embassy in Rome - in relation to other architects’ approaches to the problem of creating monumental public buildings to represent the nation abroad in the modern age. In so doing we aim to refine our understanding of the robust and self-confident architecture of the years between 1955 and 1970, in which an architecture of modern ceremony and diplomacy emerged in tandem with the reinvention of established building types such as town hall, parliament and law court.
The conference, supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, will consider the use made of classical and Renaissance prototypes and forms by mid-century modernist architects, and compare Spence’s work with that of his teacher Lutyens, and with his contemporaries such as Eero Saarinen, Harry Weese and Louis Kahn. We will also examine the reception of Spence’s Rome Embassy building by architects and critics in Italy, where it was termed ‘una lezione di civilta’ (a lesson in courtesy) by one writer, and consider it in the light of post-war Italian architecture and of attitudes to building in the Eternal City.
The conference is being organised by Louise Campbell of the University of Warwick, in conjunction with the Paul Mellon Centre and the British School at Rome.
For booking and information contact
Dr. Susan Russell, Assistant Director, The British School at Rome, via Gramsci 61, 00197 Rome, Italy.
Tel. 00+39+06 3264939 or 0632649372
Email: s.russell@bsrome.it
or
Geraldine Wellington at g.wellington@bsrome.it
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