Audio Version Read by Francesca Humi Text Version La maison du fada, or rather “the madman’s house”, is the colloquial name given to Le Corbusier’s L’Unité d’Habitation housing project in Marseilles. The name arouses intrigue and renders the project a diversion. It has a childish appeal, like the building itself, which jumps out of its…
When Swiss architect Le Corbusier responded to popular agitation against his design of Chandigarh city, India, with the wry anecdote “I am like a lightning conductor… I attract storms”, it was clear that he had created two cities, but heeded one. The project of Chandigarh was commissioned by Jawarharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of…
Audio version Read by Elena Vardon Text version An urgent, restless group of portraits by Chaïm Soutine comprises the show entitled Soutine’s Portraits: Cooks, Waiters and Bellboys. Painted in what seems like a flurry of activity, the paint still feels fresh: Soutine paints quickly wet into wet. Against the grain of conventional portraits, Soutine’s sitters were…
I have composed a visual song made of the images from the Conway archive. I like the idea that associations between images are what cause us to put them together – that there are certain ways that shapes interact which make us grasp them. Images have rhythms and tones, like a song. I have tried…
Black and white image of Parkleys Parade in 1955-56 Colour image of Parkleys Parade in 2023. [CON_B04283_F006_001, The Parkleys Parade in Ham, pictured in 1955, Arch: Eric Lyons. 1955-56. London. Parkleys. Span Estate. Upper Ham Road. Shopping terrace, Conway Library] and in June 2023 (author’s own colour images throughout) Community spirit lives on in…
Finding Humanity in Architectural Images of Amdavad This blog post is designed as a virtual exhibition and is best viewed here. An accessible version is available below. In the 1950s, the Franco-Swiss architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, designed and oversaw the construction of four buildings in the city of Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Architectural photographs…
Audio version Text version Anthony Kersting’s photographs of the Parliament Buildings in Nairobi illustrate, rather neatly, the contrast between the two stages of its design. The first section, built in 1957, was commissioned by the colonial government, whilst the second was completed, by the same architect, following the country’s independence in 1963. The architect in…
Audio version Read by Faye Fornasier Text version The 27th October 2020 marks the launch of The Courtauld’s first global crowdsourcing project: World Architecture Unlocked, a transcription task on Zooniverse. From Somerset House to the Zooniverse Since we started our work to bring over 1.5 million items from The Courtauld’s photographic libraries online we knew…
We have long had an ambition to make this Digital Media blog more accessible by adding audio versions. Since lockdown began in March, most of our day-to-day library-based digitisation activities have been re-jigged so that we can do them remotely. A silver lining to the change of pace is that the team have had to…
Audio version Read by Claudia and Celia Text version It’s Volunteers’ Week in the UK this week and we wanted to take this opportunity to celebrate our fantastic Digitisation Volunteers. Every day this week we will be sharing their stories and thoughts in our Meet our volunteers series – we hope you enjoy meeting them! Why I volunteer… Francesca:…
