TWENTY years on from the Prince of Wales’s “carbuncle” speech, we plunge into some of the hundreds of activities planned for National Architecture Week, a chance to engage with Britain’s diverse architectural heritage and to make up your own mind about the latest trends.
There are only a few more weeks to drop in to the New City Architecture exhibition at Finsbury Square, where details of 21 recent and planned projects are exhibited. There you can view the plans for the Richard Rogers design for 122 Leadenhall Street and Grimshaw’s Minerva Building and form your own opinion on the City’s rapidly changing skyline (Broadgate, EC2, www.newcityarchitecture.com) .
After that, you’ll be well equipped to join a public debate on Wednesday on that very issue — to include a contribution from Renzo Piano, whose design for the “Shard of Glass” is perhaps the most controversial of all (LSO St Luke’s, EC1, 020-7377 0540).
Now look back to earlier epochs. The arch-modernist Erno Goldfinger’s designs have become icons of their time — even the once despised monolith of Trellick Tower in West London. The late architect’s house in Hampstead is a fine example, and includes an art collection featuring works by Bridget Riley and Max Ernst. Visitors this week will be able to see two new videos inspired by Goldfinger’s designs for high-rise housing (2 Willow Road, NW3, 020-7435 6166).
From the Victorian era, Mementoes & Other Curiosities explores the Farmiloes Building in Clerkenwell as part of the London Architecture Biennale. The exhibition puts the house in an historical and artistic context, courtesy of exhibits by the Museum of London and installations by a group of contemporary artists (Farmiloes Building, EC1, 0870 2471207).
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Outside London, bring yourself back into the 20th century via photography. The Ozymandias Exhibition in Leeds features several striking works by the German photographer Thomas Kellner, whose Cubist-inspired work contorts and fragments some of Europe’s most famous buildings. The photographer himself appears in conversation on Wednesday (The Pavilion, Leeds, 0113-243 1749).
This is also the perfect time to get to grips with the work of the Centre for the Understanding of the Built Environment (Cube) in Manchester, which has just opened a retrospective of its work from 1998 on. The centre prides itself on rooting architecture within other disciplines — so models by Will Alsop will feature alongside drawings and paintings by Alison Turnbull (Portland Street, Manchester, 0161-237 5525). Manchester is also the place to catch an intriguing preview of an Oscar-nominated documentary about the architect Louis Kahn, made by the illegitimate son who barely knew him. My Architect: A Son’s Journey is screened on Thursday (Cornerhouse, 70 Oxford Street, 0161-200 1500).
If it’s all getting too gritty, dip a toe into the weird world of virtual design. In Sunderland, Fantasy Architecture 1500-2036 takes you on an epic trip round the buildings that never were. In the glorious mix of insane hubris and joyful ambition, look out for Sir Charles Cockerell’s The Professor’s Dream — which depicts a city with pyramids, the Duomo in Florence and St Paul’s Cathedral (Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, Fawcett St, Sunderland, 0191-514 1235).
NEIL FISHER
ESCAPE ARTISTS
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Amsterdam
The final week of the Holland Festival includes the last performances of Verdi’s Don Carlo, with the conductor Riccardo Chailly making his farewell appearances with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
Tickets may be difficult to come by, but the Muziektheater in Amsterdam operates a useful policy of selling unclaimed tickets from one hour before the performance. Otherwise, take a free place at the outdoor Oosterpark, where tomorrow’s performance is being broadcast live.
The Muziektheater has placed Don Carlo alongside a new Mozart-inspired music theatre piece, Alain Platel’s Wolf, featuring 12 dancers, 20 musicians, three singers and 14 dogs.