Wednesday, February 15, 2012 'Community Matters' - Wednesday 15th February 2012
William Alsop OBE RA was born in Northampton in 1947. Aged 6 he was already desigining a house for his mother to live in, which he specified should be built in New Zealand. Alsop left school aged 16 and took a foundation course in architecture. His tutor, Henry Bird, taught him one of the most valuable lessons of his career when he forced his pupil to draw a single brick for two weeks to bring home the importance of discipline and economy of line. Therefore it is not surprising that Mies van der Rohe and le Corbusier are among his other major influences. Alsop, like both of these great architects, focuses on the spaces around his buildings and the atmosphere they create as well the buildings themselves.
Alsop came to notoriety while still studying at the Architectural Association. He entered a competition to design the Pompidou Centre in Paris and his design came second only to the winners Richard Rodgers and Renzo Piano. By 1984, Alsop had opened his own practice. Among his early commissions were Sheringham swimming pool and the visitor centre in Cardiff Bay. Among his most reknowned buildings are the Hamburg ferry terminal and 'Le Grand Bleu', the seat of the regional government in Marseille. Alsop now runs practices across 3 continents and is a keen promoter of artistic contribution to built environments. He has himself been a tutor of sculpture at Central St. Martin's College, as well as holding other academic posts. Some of his paintings have been shown in the Sir John Soane Museum; they take pieces of his bigger buildings as their subject matter. A work representative of Alsop's ambition is his ‘Bradford City master plan’ which remodels the city centre around a park, making use of the natural lay of the land.
The Observer commented that Alsop's approach to architecture could broadly be defined by his statement: "I like people. I hope it shows."
Naomi Colvin is a supporter of Occupy the London Stock Exchange (‘Occupy LSX’ or ‘Occupy London’) and a free-lance journalist. Over the past year, she has been at the heart of the campaign supporting Bradley Manning, the U.S. Soldier imprisoned in Kansas for allegedly passing classified information and footage to WikiLeaks. Naomi spotted that Manning was technically a UK citizen due to his Welsh mother and alerted the press and government. She campaigned for the U.K. government to insist on improved prison conditions and for Manning to be given consular access. His trial finally begins in earnest on 23rd February and a guilty sentence would mean life in military custody.
Prior to this, Naomi worked in publishing and was not in the habit of campaigning. In the last year, however, she has campaigned tirelessly for greater accountability. Principally, she has lent her eloquence to Occupy LSX, where she assists on the press side, representing the movement to the papers as well as writing articles for the Guardian and other publications. Occupy began on 15th October 2011, inspired by the ongoing occupation of Wall Street, which was a protest against the ‘corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process ’ (in the UK, the power of businesses to lobby government) and the role of financial institutions in the crisis. Three sites were occupied: Pater Noster square outside St. Paul’s, the empty UBS building and Finsbury Square. Naomi has been outspoken in the working groups of ‘Tent City University’ outside St. Paul’s, which hosts an astounding programme of lectures directly and indirectly related to Occupy. The protesters have been evicted from UBS, and an order issued for the eviction of the St. Paul’s site. Naomi has been working to communicate the legal particulars to the press.
Tea Pot Queen Emma Bridgewater and husband Matthew Rice run one of the largest and most recognizable pottery companies in the country. Emma graduated from London University with a degree in English Literature. Her first and only job was working for knitwear designers Muir & Osborne. She became involved in every aspect of this small fashion company and it gave her the taste for doing something for herself. Emma’s father built up a publishing company which he eventually sold, another insight into entrepreneurial life.
One day, Emma was unable to find any good Birthday presents to give her mother, so sat down at her kitchen table in Oxford and drew a few sketches. Now, she has a factory on the banks of the Cauldon Canal in Stoke-on-Trent. It employs 180 people and produces 30,000 hand-made pieces of earthenware each year. The company has grown steadily but surely and the products are now sold online, through five dedicated Emma Bridgewater shops (the London ones are in Fulham and Marylebone High St.) and by a plethora of stockists. The use of traditional techniques combined with the pair’s unique style has forged a brand which represents the manufacturing for which Britain was once famed. This, she says, is the key to the couple’s success. Yet their brand vision is very clever, as a visit to the shop reveals: Royal Wedding last year, Diamond Jubilee this – artful designs which steer clear of kitsch and appeal to tourists and Brits alike.
You can go on a tour of the Stoke factory to see the casting, fettling, firing etc. and make your own ceramics, so Emma Bridgewater also attracts tourists to the Stoke area. She has undertaken other charitable initiatives in Stoke to address the unemployment-related problems accentuated by the recent welfare cuts.
Reader Comments (1)
Get more idea about how to contact website for blitz brigade hack and cheats than click on given link and enjoy