Zimmerman co-curates New Brutalist Image 1949-1955 at Tate Britain
Associate Professor of Architecture Claire Zimmerman, along with Victoria Walsh of the Royal College of Art, have co-curated an exhibition title, “New Brutalist Image 1945-1955” currently on display at the Tate Britain. Taubman College faculty members Geoff Thun and Dan McTavish of RVTR designed the installation.
In 1953 the sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi, artist-photographer Nigel Henderson, and architects Alison and Peter Smithson joined up with the pioneering structural engineer Ronald Jenkins to create the radical and still highly influential ICA exhibition Parallel of Life and Art. This historic collaboration was first forged during the design and building of the architecturally iconic Hunstanton School in Norfolk which was conceived by the Smithsons for a competition in 1949.
Photography © Tate, 2015; Photographer Lucy Dawkins
Following the timeline of Hunstanton, this display brings together an extensive range of previously unseen photographs by Henderson, drawings and proposals by the Smithsons, and sculptures by Paolozzi.
Reconsidering the innovative design and commissioning process of Jenkins’s office at Ove Arup & Partners in 1951, a test-bed for the group’s design and installation of Parallel of Life and Art, the display locates a remarkable synergy between engineering, architecture and art practices in the early 1950s. It was precisely this creative collaborations that the critic Reyner Banham would label “New Brutalism” in 1955.
Photography © Tate, 2015; Photographer Lucy Dawkins
Photography © Tate, 2015; Photographer Lucy Dawkins
The exhibition is on display from November 24, 2014 through October 4, 2015 and was made possible with generous support from ARUP London and The University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts, and Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Tate liaisons Helen Little and Elena Crippa assisted in the exhibition. Additional information can be found on the Tate Britain website. Banner image courtesy of RVTR website.
