1:1

Yesterday evening I attended the opening of the free exhibition 1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces at the V&A, on until August 30. The exhibition features seven full scale installations of mini buildings at key points in the Museum: inside the newly opened Cast Courts gallery, inside the stairwell that leads to the National Art Library, in the John Madejski gardens, in the inside/outside space of the new Medieval and Renaissance Galleries of which I have already posted a blog, outside the Architecture Galleries on the fourth floor, and in the entrance foyer.

I was quite happy to wonder away from the star studded champagne-drinking crowd. This was an exciting mix of architects, fashionistas, designers and creative professionals, cultural trendy characters – the V&A’s secret visitors, those whom you would not catch sight of in the middle of a Saturday afternoon looking lost and slightly overwhelmed… but who turn up at the glitzy events.

All the structures can be climbed into – although bare feet are required in some – they have restricted capacity, sometimes for only 6 people at one time, and the wooden bookshelf building by Norwegian architects Rintala Eggertsson on 3 floors is wobbly when you get to the top. Which makes for a slightly seasick reading experience, but a visually exciting and imaginative connection between the inside of the house and the see-through bookshelves through which you stare at the National Art Library. I peeked through the books while holding onto the real stairwell banister – and the quote was... appropriate:

A surreal moment.

I found the Beetle’s House by Japanese Architect Terunobu Fujimori an exciting intervention for it seems to tug at our heartstrings, and it reminded me of something I have never actually built or owned personally – a tree house, a primeval children’s adventure.

The outdoor Ratatosk by Norwegian Architects Helen and Hard was great for people watching, and struck me as very empathetic to the extraordinary red brick facades with their Victorian Gothic arches which surround it. (The snapshot of the yellow heel which opens this blog belonged to a lady who was picking her way carefully over the soft cushion platform made from wood and bark chips on which the structure sits.)

In terms of the politics of space - and I base this on my viewing of the drawings and visuals from all the entries which are on display in the Architecture Gallery on the 4th floor - I think the original competition may have asked architects to visualise their minibuilding in one of the premium spaces of the Cast Courts – next to the plaster cast of Michelangelo’s David. This statue, which stands at 17 feet tall (5.7m), was the first major cast in the Museum’s collection, and is one of my true loves - the first picture below shows it before the 1:1 installation.

The installation that has landed what I consider to be the prize spot is by Indian Architects Studio Mumbai. It takes inspiration from the so called unauthorized structures that exist in Mumbai, narrow slithers of buildings “basically sandwiched between the outside wall of a warehouse and the boundary wall of a property”. (The images below are from the audiovisual in the entrance foyer - and express the architectural inspiration.)

The location of the structure - called In Between Architecture - in the Cast Court seems to create an unexpected conversation between two opposing ideas of public space: that defined on the one hand as the grand, sun filled, open piazza in Renaissance Florence, and on the other by the circulation thoroughfares in Mumbai today, that run through private dwellings, in between spaces, drawing the light in from slits above. Private spaces that symbolise the pressures on public space. (This is a view from the inside of the structure looking up - a plaster cast of a real tree, an organic form absorbed within the concrete shape sits central to the building.)

David stands taller than the structure, seeming to contemplate it with a certain wariness – and the dialogue is electrifying.

If you're in London, go and see it. If not, the website is: http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/architecture/smallspaces/index.html

And... on a final note.

Walking past the V&A’s enormous halls in the evening, peering into the darkened galleries, contemplating the sleeping showcases and the objects inside them, quiet and still, is a beautiful, calming experience. I enjoyed this as much as the structures – and the other stunning architectural specimens which seem passé, redundant giants: the cast of Trajan’s Column for example, unceremoniously chopped into half to fit the void. What wonderful places museums are!