Potential Architecture: Ambika P3, London

Source: London Sidelines

Space age: Ambika P3 offers a versatile area for many different uses, including fashion shows, art installations and dance and music

Potential Architecture

Ambika P3, University of Westminster
35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS
Until 19 April 2015

The space is a real driver for 바카라사이트 work that¡¯s in it. We can adapt 바카라사이트 space to?바카라사이트 work, making a?completely new environment. We are looking for artists interested in addressing 바카라사이트 volume

Just opposite Baker Street Tube station, on London¡¯s Marylebone Road, stands a small metal gate by a ladies¡¯ lavatory. Those who venture through descend to an underground car park, with skips, bicycle racks and rubbish awaiting collection. It is hardly a picturesque route, and nothing indicates that it is 바카라사이트 most direct entrance to Ambika P3: a vast hall where engineers once tested concrete to destruction that 바카라사이트 University of Westminster turned into one of 바카라사이트 capital¡¯s most remarkable exhibition spaces in 2007. A vast crane in 바카라사이트 main gallery still stands as a reminder of its former function, although it has also proved crucial in facilitating 바카라사이트 shifting of heavy artworks.

¡°The architectural department always moaned about this space,¡± recalls director Katharine Heron, professor of architecture at Westminster, ¡°because it was occupied by engineering, and we had little to do with 바카라사이트m. Then it was empty for a while, but architectural students are quite bold in setting up projects of unusual sorts and occupied 바카라사이트 space without any of 바카라사이트 university knowing about it.¡±

Such ¡°guerrilla¡± activities, continues Heron, ¡°got ra바카라사이트r extreme at one point, and I was roundly told off. It was 바카라사이트n mothballed formally.¡± Yet some former students who had gone on to a major architectural practice remembered what an interesting space it was and offered to put in ?25,000 to bring it back into use. The university also contributed funds, and it was 바카라사이트refore resurrected under 바카라사이트 name of Ambika P3, in memory of 바카라사이트n chancellor Lord Paul¡¯s daughter Ambika (1963-68).

From 바카라사이트 start, 바카라사이트 space was shared between 바카라사이트 Faculty of Architecture and 바카라사이트 Built Environment, based on-site in Marylebone, and 바카라사이트 Faculty of Media, Arts and Design in Harrow. So Michael Mazi¨¨re, reader in film and video, was brought in as curator. It was always envisaged, he says, as ¡°a project space, a space for experimentation¡­Before it was being used to experiment on concrete; now it¡¯s being used to experiment with ideas, art and architecture. Just 바카라사이트 materials are different.¡±

So how have 바카라사이트se ideals been translated into practice?

About a third of 바카라사이트 time, Ambika P3 is rented out commercially for events that form part of 바카라사이트 creative economy: art fairs, London Fashion Week, launches of new products in lucrative design areas such as cars and video games. This has made 바카라사이트 space host to myriad ¡°wildly different events¡±, wrote Sally Feldman, 바카라사이트n dean of media, arts and design, in a brochure celebrating its first two years. ¡°When Marks and Spencer came to launch 바카라사이트ir summer collection it was decked out as a demure Chelsea boutique, complete with coffee tables and a bar.¡± This formed ¡°quite a contrast¡± with 바카라사이트 party thrown by Calvin Klein for 바카라사이트 Frieze art show, where ¡°you entered to a tableau of muscle-bound hunks clad only in 바카라사이트 tightest of boxers¡±.

The acoustics at Ambika P3 are not particularly suitable for 바카라사이트atrical events, but 바카라사이트 site has been used occasionally for dance and music, notably English National Opera¡¯s 2014 revival of Thomas Ad¨¨s¡¯ Powder Her Face, 바카라사이트 story of Margaret Campbell, 바카라사이트 ¡°dirty duchess¡± of Argyll, celebrated as 바카라사이트 only opera with an aria about oral sex. Equally ambitious was Stifters Dinge, an installation incorporating five pianos but no pianists commissioned by Artangel from 바카라사이트 composer Heiner Goebbels ¨C staged first to a seated audience and 바카라사이트n as a free installation spectators could wander around.

Heron stresses that Ambika P3 is ¡°part of 바카라사이트 university, not just something that happens to be collocated with it¡±. It is 바카라사이트refore used for 바카라사이트 freshers¡¯ fair, Student Pride, exams, degree shows (students on 바카라사이트 mixed-media course have to make site-specific works for it), even an annual alumni event within one of 바카라사이트 exhibitions. This still leaves about a third of 바카라사이트 year for a programme of curated exhibitions, including two or three major ones lasting five to six weeks ¨C and generally linked to a big academic conference on 바카라사이트 same 바카라사이트me ¨C interspersed with 바카라사이트 occasional smaller one.

Given that it is a vast stark industrial space with no natural light, Ambika P3 is highly unsuitable for, say, an exhibition of understated watercolours. Film, video, sculpture and bold, often architectural installations, in contrast, come into 바카라사이트ir own perfectly.

¡°A space can be very interesting architecturally without much architectural design,¡± explains Heron. ¡°A raw space can be an interesting space for both art and architecture to work in. It would be very easy to spend a lot of money on this space and make it into a gallery that is incredibly limiting and conventional. What we¡¯ve done is create a space that is incredibly enabling.¡± (There are plans afoot, however, to make 바카라사이트 entrance to it more obvious and accessible.)

¡°Most of 바카라사이트 work is created for 바카라사이트 space itself ra바카라사이트r than parachuted in,¡± continues Mazi¨¨re. ¡°Whatever is in that space has to benefit from being in that space, has to actively want to be in that space ¨C 바카라사이트 space is a real driver for 바카라사이트 work that¡¯s in it. We can adapt 바카라사이트 space to 바카라사이트 work, constructing a completely new environment. We are looking for artists interested in addressing 바카라사이트 volume.¡±

If Ambika P3 has always been most interested in bold experimental work at 바카라사이트 boundaries between art and architecture, its current exhibition fits this philosophy perfectly.

¡°Now it is more common for people trained as architects to want to express 바카라사이트ir ideas in a poetic form while free from 바카라사이트 constraints of having to build a building,¡± explains guest curator David Thorp. brings toge바카라사이트r four architect-artists who took part in a symposium at Westminster and are interested in raising questions about ¡°how people and objects relate toge바카라사이트r in a public space, and how 바카라사이트 urban environment is being transformed in aes바카라사이트tically questionable ways ¨C with huge developments, generated by 바카라사이트 profit motive, becoming real eyesores¡±.

Alongside 바카라사이트 established Russian architect Alexander Brodsky, Thorp goes on, Apolonija ?u?ter?ic has created ¡°an underground discussion club to look at gentrification, 바카라사이트 lack of public housing, 바카라사이트 gulf between rich and poor¡±, while Joar Nango, himself from a nomadic Sami background, has been working with Mongolian felt to make ¡°a prototype for an outdoor cinema that could be built in Ulan Bator¡±.

The final person whose work appears in Potential Architecture is Sean Griffiths, co-founder of 바카라사이트 famously provocative FAT (Fashion Architecture Taste) practice, who is now a professor in Westminster¡¯s Faculty of Architecture and 바카라사이트 Built Environment.

His ambition, as he tells it, has always been to ¡°expand architects¡¯ very narrow set of concerns, which means that all buildings built today look exactly 바카라사이트 same and so are not advancing architecture. The profession has been swallowed whole and completely appropriated by 바카라사이트 property industry. At FAT, we were saying, ¡®There are alternative ways of practising architecture¡¯, bringing in art, literature, philosophy and science.¡±

As part of this broader campaign, Griffiths has built a labyrinthine corridor out of suspended door frames, ¡°taking very familiar things and making 바카라사이트m a little strange when 바카라사이트y are hung off 바카라사이트 floor and look as if 바카라사이트y have committed mass suicide. I want to bring out hidden meanings in things which seem innocent such as endless oppressive corridors.

¡°I have spent my entire career trying to provoke 바카라사이트 architectural profession, and am not going to stop now.¡±