Announcing Our First Festival Hub: London Bridge

Ending the year on a high, we’re delighted to announce that London Bridge is our first Festival Hub for the London Festival of Architecture 2019. As one of our focus areas for LFA2018, we’re very excited to welcome Team London Bridge back on board for our next Festival. We’ll be announcing our other Festival Hubs each week in the new year.

The area around London Bridge station was a place of transition for decades. Today, this regenerated area is a destination in its own right. From culture to cuisine, London Bridge has much to offer, and is home to many of London’s leading architecture practices.

’Being a focus area for the London Festival of Architecture has allowed London Bridge to question the way the rest of the capital sees it, exploring the way the public interacts with our spaces and places, and the relationship between our better known buildings and cultural institutions. The LFA provides the perfect vehicle for the area to employ our London Bridge Culture Strategy, working with the team to devise a high quality, varied programme that challenges preconceptions and enhances our relationships with our members and partners. Last year was immensely exciting to be part of and we’re already having fun with the ‘Boundaries’ theme for 2019.’

Nadia Broccardo, Chief Executive Team London Bridge

London Bridge festival highlights 2018

As one of our four focus areas for LFA2018, London Bridge played host to an exciting range of events and activities, including everything from film screenings to walking tours. Read on to see some of our London Bridge highlights from this June:

Émigré Architect

“Exile, in whatever form, is the breeding ground for creative action, for the new.” Czech-German philosopher Vilém Flusser. Stirling Prize-winning practice dRMM created a short film about the influence of the émigré architect on our capital. Screened every Friday throughout June as part of the Summer by the River series in The Scoop at London Bridge, the film featured 10 interviews with dRMM architects and designers from 10 different nations.

London Bridge Station Walking Tours

Offering a unique insight into the design and construction of the newly reopened London Bridge Station,  Grimshaw Architects and Network Rail led a series of guided walking tours around the project. Grimshaw’s Stuart Grahn discussed technical processes and design features behind the new station while Liam Farrell from Network Rail spoke about the building’s history and its impact on the local community.

Site Tour of The Dixon Hotel

The Dixon is a grand building with an artful mix of historic heritage and contemporary character, in a landmark position in London’s most cosmopolitan and culturally rich area. As part of LFA2018, visitors were invited to embark upon a tour of this former Magistrates Court during its transformation into a contemporary hotel, learning about the ideas behind the new design and how much of the identity of the Tower Bridge Magistrates Court still weaves into the building’s fabric.

Where do Houses Live? 

From an extension to an existing settlement by the River Tweed, to proposals for a new neighbourhood quarter north of Cambridge, ‘Where do Houses Live?’ was an exhibition of Proctor and Matthews Architects’ work and explored issues surrounding identity and sense of place. The practice presented their new approach to the design of neighbourhoods, with projects anchored in the social, environmental and cultural contexts of each specific location.

Baghdad Architecture

A collaboration between the Embassy of the Republic of Iraq in London, the Al-Kindi Society of Iraq Engineers and Turath, this insightful photography exhibition was designed to showcase the unique architectural beauty and identity of Baghdad. Hosted in the newly renovated concourse of London Bridge Station this June, the 32 exhibition panels enabled commuters and visitors to share and enjoy Baghdad’s heritage and impressive architecture, created by architects from both Iraq and around the world.

The story of the London Stock Brick walking tour of London Bridge

From their new showroom in London Bridge, Taylor Maxwell led a series of walking tours of the area throughout June, showcasing examples of the London stock in use on historical landmarks and other striking buildings. Here visitors had the opportunity to learn more about the origins of brickwork in London and the history of the London stock.

Watch Out For: 

During LFA2018, Charles Holland Architects won our London Bridge wayfinding competition, run in collaboration with Team London Bridge, with his design ‘You are Here’ which will be installed in time for the 2019 festival.

The competition aimed to improve the public realm in London Bridge by transforming the Tooley Street Triangle – a busy but dull traffic island opposite the main entrance to London Bridge station. ‘You Are Here’ brings a page of the London A-Z come to life, helping the thousands of people using London Bridge station every day to find their way around the area, and helping this overlooked piece of pavement become a local landmark and meeting point.