3 minute read
The Museum of Finnish Architecture
2006 Change
For its second appearance, the festival covered the notion of change, celebrating both the transience and consistency of London life, an exploring the junction of rural and urban. Featuring highlights such as the London Oasis – a sculptural piece responding to its environment, a photography exhibition of subterranean London by Alan Williams, pecha kucha at Sadlers Wells, and speeches by Renzo Piano and the then newly-elected Mayor Boris Johnson. Animals featured once again, as Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano driving 60 sheep across the Millennium Bridge – surrounded by over 15,000 Londoners – provided an enduring image for the festival.
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2004 When the festival was a biennale
The very first London Festival of Architecture – then known as the Architecture Biennale – lasted ten days. Its central focus, based around Clerkenwell, sought to illustrate how the past determines the future The programme included lectures and talks from Zaha Hadid, Peter Ackroyd and Dejan Sudjic, exploring topics that remain relevant today such as “Gentrification v Regeneration”. But the highlight was definitely a cattle drive down St John Street to Smithfield market, bringing thousands of Londoners – young and old – out of their homes and into the city.
The Museum of Finnish Architecture looks for hope in wood.
The Museum of Finnish Architecture’s main exhibition this autumn and winter, Hope from Wood (10.9.2021–10.4.2022), looks at wooden architecture from the perspective of the hope it inspires. The multi-voiced and multi-faceted exhibition brings together an interesting group of contributors addressing the exhibition theme in the form of, for instance, love letters, videos and music. The time span extends from the early achievements of wood construction to the architecture of the future produced by artificial intelligence. In the era of climate crisis, much is expected from wood. One building material hardly solves all the challenges of building construction, but it is the spark that hopefully ignites a debate about major change. In Finland there are more than 800 places with the name “Toivola” (toivo = hope) – villages, farms and houses, most of which are built in wood. Preserving the existing building stock is an expression of love for the built heritage, but also of climate wisdom. The exhibition looks for inspiration for contemporary construction from the treasure trove of the past, as well as answers to the questions of what and whose hope has been placed in wood at different times in history. The love letters to the built heritage featured in the exhibition that are written in different parts of Finland provide a tangible example of how people and communities have become attached to the old building stock and are committed to its preservation. Over the last decade, wood has begun to appear more often among the prize-winners in architectural competitions as well as other award ceremonies in the building profession. Several wood-clad landmark buildings have been built in the capital of our forest-covered nation. New types of wood construction have spread throughout the country in the form of schools and day-care centres. Hopefully the construction of wooden apartment buildings will increase, but a chasm still exists between hope and reality. The exhibition asks why this is the case. As the climate crisis deepens, wood is being shouldered with the role of saviour, as the use of wood reduces the carbon footprint in building construction. A single material, however, cannot solve all the challenges we face. The exhibition highlights how architects, as well as the entire construction industry, can have a say in what kind of future we are heading for. The future is explored in the exhibition in diverse ways. What, for example, could be a song for the architecture of the future? What kind of wood construction do architecture students hope to realise? And what kind of dream does artificial intelligence have about tomorrow’s wooden architecture?
