Four new FREE exhibitions from the Architectural Association School of Architecture (the AA School) enable visitors to explore the world’s past, current and future architectural thinkers, practitioners and visionaries. 

• Brussels-based architects 51N4E, showcase large and intimate projects including transforming ex-Soviet public squares with water and a steel wrapped farmhouse in their exhibition ‘Double or Nothing’.
• Pop-art architectural thinker, Francois Dallegret, opens an exhibition of his works including groundbreaking bubble buildings, astrological vehicles and an anarchic sense of fun.
• ‘Preston is my Paris’, ‘Spam in Chile’ and ‘Scapegoat in Canada’ – are just some of the 60 international architecture fanzines on show in Archizines, illustrating how people around the world relate to their built environment.
• ‘Visions of the Future’, a chance to witness the work of this year’s AA School Honours students.
• Images here: http://bit.ly/AAschoolroundup

The exhibitions are part of the AA School’s programme of FREE talks, exhibitions and events enabling all those interested in architecture and the built environment to explore these subjects with the globe’s brightest thinkers and fore-most practitioners.

Exhibitions

All are free and take place at the AA School, 36 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3ES.  Opening times: Monday to Friday 10am – 7pm, Saturday 9am – 5pm, closed Sunday.  

Double or Nothing

1 – 26 October 2011, AA Gallery

‘Double or Nothing’ presents the architectural and spatial projects of Brussels-based practice 51N4E. Curated by French architectural critic Dominique Boudet, the show re-examines a selection of recent projects from the large-scale to the intimate.  They include:

• The transformation of Tirana’s Skanderberg Square (the most important public space in Albania) through the use of water and altered perspective.  Larger than Red Square in Moscow and twice the size of St Peters Square in Rome, this famous square has been the stage for Soviet conquests, protests for liberation and the overthrow of dictators.  51N4E has created a square for modern Albania – a public space that reacts to mood of the people through water.  From pools and urban beaches to formal state spaces.  
• Arteconomy; an extension of high steel walls to cocoon a Belgian farmhouse and featuring a 3 x 3 metre day bed composed of soft weave, colourful woolen knit tubes.  

‘Double or Nothing’ challenges the visitor to look beyond architecture’s surface conventions and their representation.  The accompanying publication ‘Double or Nothing’, designed by 51N4E and AA and published by the AA, will be available to purchase.

Visions of the Future:  AA School Honours Students

1 – 26 October 2011, Front Members’ Room

Four AA School students graduating this year have joined luminaries such as Peter Ahrends and Sir Nicholas Grimshaw in receiving full Honours for their studies at the AA School.  This accolade is the highest award the School can bestow on a student, recognising prestigious excellence and talent.

The exhibition enables visitors to explore the Honours work across issues as diverse as the legacy of gold mining within Aboriginal homelands, solutions to Haiti’s cholera epidemic, floating desert city tourist destinations and managing Europe’s population.

GOD & CO:  Francois Dallegret Beyond The Bubble

5 November – 14 December 2011, AA Gallery

Francios Dallegret will open the show from 1830 - 2030hrs on 4 November.

Dallegret, most famous for his work on ‘bubble houses’ was a leading architectural and design provocateur during 1960s and 1970s.  Counting Reyner Banham, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Iris Clert as friends and collaborators, Dallegret’s creations fused the period’s pop art flair with his industrial drawing techniques, vivid imagination and an anarchic sense of fun.  The exhibition provides the chance to meet Dallegret and explore his world and work including bubble housing, earth orbiting city space rockets, extraordinary astrological vehicles, drug store designs and even science-fiction westerns. 

Archizines

Curated by Elias Redstone

5 November – 14 December 2011, Front Members’ Room

Archizines showcases 60 architectural fanzines from 20 countries around the world and includes video interviews with their creators.  From the photo-copied newsletter to beautifully bound magazines, each fanzine is a creative platform for the subject and the author.  Together they provide a rich and unique window into how people relate to the spaces we inhabit.  Each magazine will be on show, while their authors will be represented in  video interviews talking about their work.  Highlights include ‘Preston is my Paris’, ‘Spam in Chile’ and ‘Scapegoat in Canada’.  Elias Redstone is a curator, writer and columnist.  He curated ‘Emergency Exit’, Poland’s national pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2010, he is columist for the ‘New York Times Design Blog’ and Editor in Chief of the ‘London Architecture Diary’.