Going back to the title of the book, it seems to me that Vinciarelli’s work is united by light, both literally and as a metaphor – from the courtyard typology and pergolas, to the luminous watercolours, it always comes back to bringing in light. Vinciarelli once made a connection between some of her watercolour paintings and the 'Annunciation' scene from the Bible, and how light penetrates the protected space of the Virgin, who is in an enclosed garden (the 'hortus conclusus'); the hortus conclusus, in turn, had influenced Vinciarelli’s designs of gardens. So as diverse and varied as her work might appear, it is all connected, and it always comes back to the light.
The heightened reputation of the AA in the second half of the 1950s owed much to the fact that it provided a home for the vanguard of British architecture, notably Peter Smithson and John Killick, at just the moment when, through their activities in CIAM and the agency of Architectural Design, they were thrust into the international limelight.
Good branding makes emotional and experiential connections with its audiences. In Building Brands, I build upon this truth of contemporary branding practice by expanding it to the three-dimensional discipline of architecture. We don’t often think of having emotions towards buildings and spaces, but just like hearing an old familiar song will bring back specific memories, certain places, buildings, and spaces elicit strong emotions from their inhabitants. My intention of bringing the architects’ and designers’ point of view to branding practice is to enrich branding as three-dimensional and spatial.
In our latest ‘In Conversation’ piece, Liane Lefaivre, author of Rebel Modernists: Viennese Architecture Since Otto Wagner, talks to Meris Ryan-Goff about the architectural rebels who redefined Viennese architecture and shaped a city that...
Set within the fascinating cultural and political world of Vienna from the fin-de-siècle to the present day, Rebel Modernists: Viennese Architecture since Otto Wagner by Liane Lefaivre provides an insightful analysis of the...
In May 1939, nearly 75 years ago, the celebrated American architect Frank Lloyd Wright visited London and gave four lectures at the RIBA. The meetings were hailed at the time as ‘perhaps the most remarkable events of recent architectural affairs in England. No architectural speaker in London has ever in living memory gathered such audiences.’ With great […]