New London Architecture Festival Re-Creates Village Fete

LONDON—The London Festival of Architecture, which opens tomorrow and runs through July 20, will fill the English capital with over 500 architectural happenings, interventions, and events. Highlights include a retrospective of Richard Rogers at the Design Museum; talks by Daniel Libeskind and David Chipperfield; a treasure hunt; a mass public picnic and architectural jelly banquet by artists Bompas & Parr; dance performances commissioned by Grimshaw Architects; and an exhibition space in the shape of a giant wardrobe by Berlin-based artist Simon Fujiwara. The festival, a re-branded version of the London Architecture Biennale, last held in 2006, will see the city divided into five hubs, each curated by a different organization, including the festival's central committee, the Royal Institute for British Architects, New London Architecture, the Architecture Foundation, and David Morley Architects.

Pavilions seem to be the order of the day, and the festival boasts no less than 12, by the likes of Dan Graham, Norman Foster, and Annika Eriksson. The French architecture collective EXYZT, who were stars of the French pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2006, are breaking the mold slightly by installing an outdoor lido complete with swimming deck, sauna, and beach bar in the South Bank district. The installation is curated by the Architecture Foundation, whose acting director, Elias Redstone, said of the project: “Pavilions have connotations of static structures; we want the lido to constantly evolve. The EXYZT team will be living within it (in beach huts), and the local community is being invited in to make the installation their own. It should be a meeting place in the tradition of the old hammams, rather than just an architectural marvel.”

At the festival’s launch this morning, director Peter Murray said, “We want the festival to have a village fete atmosphere. The event isn’t really concerned with promoting commercial architecture as such; it’s about asking the public to take a new look at the city, its history, its environment, and where the future lies.”