Sledge Blog

The Hayward at 40

Took a trip to the Southbank on Wednesday evening to hear a talk celebrating 40 years of the Hayward Gallery. On the panel were one of the building’s original architects, Dennis Crompton, artist Anthony Gormley and critic Alison Rawsthorn.

The Hayward Gallery image courtesy of Marc Cox

The Hayward isn’t London’s best loved building and is burdened with the label of being of the ‘brutalist’ school of architecture. But the more you learn about the building’s genesis and what the architects set out to achieve, the more interesting it becomes. It started as a 1950s urban planning challenge; everyday thousands of people arrived into Waterloo Station and had to make their way to the other side of the river. In between Waterloo Station and Waterloo Bridge was an area of old factories and the remnants of the Festival of Britain site - including the wonderfully named 'Dome of Discovery'. The brief to the architects was to create a building that acted as a concourse at the same height as the platforms at Waterloo Station to help carry people to the bridge and beyond.

The Mappin Terraces image courtesy of Malcolm Edwards

They were inspired by the Mappin Terraces at London Zoo and created this multilayered structure that people could access and travel through at different levels. This was the thinking behind the whole South Bank area - that it should be alive with people but for the first thirty years of the Hayward’s existence it was bereft of people and events and consequently didn’t work as a public space.

The area is now alive with stuff, currently there is a boating lake on the building’s roof as part of the Psycho Buildings  exhibition, an amazing United Visual Artists light installation twinkles nearby and Nokia's Skate Almighty  is in situ. The Hayward was designed not to be a passive art gallery but as a space to host events both inside and outside; the more that is going on around it the better it works as a building.

London Calling

Last week I popped down to London Calling the annual music industry jamboree that takes place at Earl's Court. I attended two interesting sessions, both of which were concerned with creating value, but in slightly different ways.

The first was a panel of agency people talking about examples of great music / brand tie ups. There were some fairly well known examples, such as Bacardi and Groove Armada, but perhaps the most interesting was Absolut Machines. This campaign involves two groups of musicians building sound installations, which people can go online and have a play with; the machines are also part of a touring exhibition. Someone made the good point that brands often forget about their heritage when they get into music. Absolut Machines is a good example of a brand staying true to itself.

Brands also need to convince people that they have a genuine passion for music, Red Bull, through their Music Academy, have achieved this. For the last ten years they have been helping artists get started in the business and now they are setting up their own label to leverage the position they have created. An interesting example of a brand's passion giving rise to a new business opportunity. The only criticism of Red Bull was that they had kept their activity in music too quiet.

The second panel looked at mobile music and asked the question; what is the value of music in the digital age? For handset manufacturers the value is in the user interface and adding extra services. With a ratio of 20:1 for illegal to legal downloads, tools such as Sony Ericsson's Track ID which helps people find out the name of a track they are listening to their mobile's radio and then purchase it are the kind of tools that will add value.

For both brands looking to engage consumers through music and mobile operators looking to make money through music the key is finding new ways for people to access music.

Magical Margate

Wonderful posters in Margate's museum.

And a very rare collection of paraplegic dolls!

Lost in Space

What an ideal experience in the midst of this gloomy, overcast London “summer”: Antony Gormley’s ‘Blind Light’ exhibition at Hayward Gallery. I went this past weekend and found myself lost and disoriented in the midst of dense mist, foggy glass walls, steel mass, reinforced concrete and aluminum tubes. The artist has created a series of interactive experiences, exploring ways in which we orient ourselves within the urban, built environment - and, more importantly, how we react when we are disoriented and lose our certainty in space.

‘Blind Light’, a luminous glass room filled with a thick cloud of mist, had a queue of visitor’s circling the room, waiting in suspense to enter.  Inside, people would disappear, enveloped by vapor and eventually appearing again as confused silhouettes coming closer to the glass to locate themselves. As a labyrinth without walls, you would lose yourself in light and mist with no visibility of what and who was in front of you.

My favorite part of this exhibition was the 31 life-sized (and naked) sculptural casts of the artist’s body spread across the city centre, on bridges, rooftops and pavements, all of them visible from the gallery balcony. In the drizzly and misty grayscale of sky, concrete buildings and London streets, these figures appeared eerie and uncanny, as they were peering across the city’s horizon.

The exhibition ended Sunday, but I believe the figures are still standing. If you are in the South Bank area keep an eye out for them!

Victorian Sideshow

As part of The London Design Festival, design collective Beyond The Valley are putting on Wunderville,  a 'Victorian Sideshow' featuring a collection of spectacles and exhibitions happening from 15th September in the Carnaby Street area. If anybody goes please share your experiences.

Tate Tracks

Last year I went to a talk by Will Gompertz Communications Director at the Tate, he was talking about the initiatives they were trying to attract more young people to their galleries, which seemed like a tall order. What struck me was the breadth of things they were trying. Everything from repositioning the work as shown below...

... to live music events supported by partnerships with brands like Diesel...

... to exhibitions featuring work by kids.

I doubt everything they do is that successful but it was great to hear about a brand prepared to try loads of stuff. Then at the weekend I read about a new initiative they are trying. Tate Tracks sees musicians such as the Chemical Brothers and Graham Coxon producing tracks inspired by specific pieces of art, the tracks will then be available to hear exclusively at listening posts positioned by the corresponding piece. A month later the track will be available on the Tate website. Great stuff.

Boats versus cars

Last week I visited both the National Maritime Museum and the Design Museum's Formula One show. The Maritime Museum was a bit flat the Design Museum brilliant. Why?

The Maritime Museum didn't really seem to have a narrative, my journey through the space seemed a bit random, strange exhibits about the history of cargo shipping sat right next to exhibits of naval military uniforms. The design of the building doesn't help but I had this feeling that if they took everything, placed it in a big pile and then put it all back in a different order it would work better.

The Design Museum's Formula One Show on the other hand was fantastically well curated. Obviously you expect the Design Museum to design a good show but this is absolutely stunning - and I don't even like F1. The exhibition space is tiny compared to the Maritime Museum but that suits me fine, I've always thought museums are too big - who remembers anything from the Natural History Museum other than the dinosaurs? The Formula One show doesn't employ lots of multi-media devises just simple design principles. A Renault F1 car is shown with lots of the panels suspended on wires slightly away from the main body so you can see the workings, there is a time line of F1 innovation, a display of engines - all simple stuff but beautifully presented. Definitely worth checking out - whether you like cars or not.

In short the difference between these two experiences is having a clear narrative and employing great design.