The Zaha Hadid Foundation partners with the Architecture Foundation to support and host POST PRESS, an eight-week public programme
On June 16th the Architecture Foundation publishes New Architects 5, the latest edition in its landmark series of guides to the UK’s best emerging practices. Throughout the summer, we will be collaborating with them to present POST PRESS, a temporary event space programmed by the 93 practices featured in the book.
Housed at the Zaha Hadid Foundation’s premises at 10 Bowling Green Lane in Clerkenwell, POST PRESS will play host to more than 30 events focused on subjects ranging from football to conservation, club culture to clay. The space will also be open as a library bookshop where visitors can browse New Architects 5 alongside a selection of titles donated by the featured practices.
Read on to discover what’s on during week 1 and 2 and register to attend:
Wednesday June 17th, Sir Stuart Lipton in conversation with General Office
Join Emma Rutherford and Richard Hall of General Office for an onstage conversation with Sir Stuart Lipton, the developer whose work has reshaped modern London. From Broadgate, Stockley Park and Chiswick Park to Paternoster Square and 22 Bishopsgate, Lipton has brought architectural ambition, public space and civic purpose to commercial development. His influence also extends to major cultural projects, including Tate Modern and the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery. Off the back of General Office’s recent work on the future of Stockley Park, this conversation asks what can be learned from a career spent transforming large sites into places of lasting metropolitan consequence.
Friday June 19th, A Design Service for the People with Unit 38
The first Community Technical Aid Centre (CTAC) was established in Liverpool in 1979. Supported by public funding, over 100 CTACs would open across the country, often in areas suffering high levels of deprivation and social inequality. Providing built environment services to people unable to afford professional fees, CTACs supported thousands of projects with technical aid encompassing architectural design, funding, operations, surveying, engineering, community work and rectification of housing issues. Today, almost none of this vital social infrastructure remains. Join us to travel ‘back to the future’: we will explore the legacy of CTACs and other spatial practices, and imagine ways to rebuild a design service for the people – strengthening the power communities have to shape their own neighbourhoods.
Tuesday 23rd June – Julian Harrap in conversation with Studio KA
Join Katherine Nolan and Alex Butterworth of Studio KA for a conversation with Julian Harrap, one of Britain’s foremost conservation architects. Over five decades, Harrap hascombined scholarship, patience and exacting craft in the repair and renewal of historic buildings, with landmark projects including Sir John Sone’s Museum, Pitzhanger Manor, the Royal Academy and the celebrated Neues Museum in Berlin. For Studio KA, whose work explores reuse, continuity and the cultural life of existing buildings, this meeting offers a chance to hear a practitioner reflect on evidence, judgement and invention, and on how architecture can help the past live.
Wednesday 24th June – The Past in the Present with James Pockson and Neal Shasore
What are the metaphors, gestures, details, and assumptions that constrain working with the historic environment? Where do they come from? Who do they serve? James Pockson (IDK) Neal Shasore (The School of Building) and guests will excavate, explore and test the cliches and conventions of conservation. Expect short and punchy responses to some of conservation’s keywords – HARM, REPAIR, ADAPT, STITCH, CARVE, QUOTE – plenty of discussion, and a live craft demonstration.
Hosted by Jos Myles Geczy and Rosa Nussbaum, the designers and fabricators of Post Press, JIGS is a pop up exhibition bringing together architects and craftspeople to explore how London’s fabrication economy shapes its design culture. Makers from Blackhorse Workshop and other open access fabrication spaces will display their work together with the jigs and tooling that enabled their production. From 7.30pm, Jos and Rosa will be in conversation with Mark Brearley, architect, author and owner of the long-established London tray and trolley manufacturer Kaymet, to reflect on how the economy of fabrication in the city has changed over time.
Friday 26th June – Making the V&A East with James Woodcock
Join James Woodcock, architect, engineer and director of Field Practice, for a conversation with people involved in the construction of V&A East, one of London’s most significant new cultural projects. Recently appointed the first Matthew Bonye Research Fellow at the Architecture Foundation, Woodcock is developing Embodied Energy, an oral history project centring the experience of tradespeople, fabricators and makers who turn architectural ideas into built reality. Marking the project’s public beginning, this event explores what buildings owe to the judgement, skill and collaboration of those who physically bring them into being.
Saturday 27th June – The Past is the Present is the Future with James Pockson and Neal Shasore
In the second of their two contributions to Craft and Conservation week, James Pockson (IDK) and Neal Shasore (The School of Building) call for a reassessment of our existing systems around ‘heritage’, conservation and preservation. Can we start to build a consensus about new conceptual frames, new modes of practice, new strategies and tactics? This session will be a festival of the unorthodox and heterodox. Alongside guests presenting different metaphors and motifs, we will collectively explore their implications using the Bowling Green Lane Board School and the historic district of Finsbury as a testing ground.
New events will be revealed weekly—stay tuned here or join our mailing list for updates!