London Celebrates Architecture with City-wide Festival

Twenty-eight embassies will unveil the best architecture from their countries.

Mairi Beautyman -- Interior Design, 5/15/2008

In New York, the month of May is the celebration of design. After getting your fill of the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, off-site events like exhibitions on Finnish design and Spanish design, satisfy your penchant for architecture overseas in London. The city-wide London Festival of Architecture (LFA) runs June 10-July 20.

The festival includes over 600 exhibitions, lectures, public space installations, guided walks, bicycle rides, boat tours, parties, design workshops, and debates. A roster of international architecture stars will make a showing, among them, David Chipperfield, Daniel Libeskind, Cesar Pelli, and Rem Koolhaas.

The festivities will be organized around five key 'Hubs': The Kensington, Chelsea & Knightsbridge; the Canary Wharf, Greenwich Peninsula & Stratford; King's Cross, Bloomsbury, Fitzrovia & Covent Garden; Southwark & South Bank; and Clerkenwell & The City of London. Each weekend, a Hub will host a large-scale public event.

Major events include the second annual student festival, showcasing innovative work from students in fields including architecture, urban design, planning, engineering, landscape design, and product design, and the Embassies Project.  Twenty-eight foreign embassies will participate in the latter, unveiling the best architecture from their countries.

LFA is presented in association with Design For London.

Above: EcoMachine1, an aviary without a protection net. Courtesy of LFA.