Announcing our second festival hub: City of London

Having announced our first Festival Hub at the end of last year, we’re now thrilled to reveal the second hub area to be joining us this June – the City of London! Following a fantastic year of collaboration in 2018, we are delighted that the City of London Corporation is returning for a second year, as one of our wonderful Festival Hubs for the London Festival of Architecture 2019.  

The City of London is where London began, and a fascinating place to explore our 2019 boundaries theme. Still largely defined by London’s first boundary – the Roman city wall – the City remains a unique district where many other boundaries can be seen in play. Whether it’s boundaries between old and new, commerce and everyday life, or public and private space, the City of London is a place where boundaries are clearly expressed through its architecture, streets and spaces.

City of London festival highlights 2018

Last year’s festival saw the City bustling with activity as a 2018 focus area, showcasing and hosting an amazing variety of creative, innovative and family events throughout June and working with us on one of the most popular competitions we’ve ever run! Scroll down to have a look through a few of our highlights, which took place in the City for LFA2018:

City Benches

Our City Benches competition led to ten public benches being installed around the City to showcase London’s brilliant emerging architects and designers, and provide passers-by with places to meet, rest and soak in surroundings steeped in history. Playfully illustrating the area’s rich heritage and characteristics, bench designs ranged from a much-loved concrete cut out of a dachshund, to a continuous ribbon of yellow plywood which brought a splash of color to One New Change.

G-Tainer Installation

An exciting collaboration between G-SMATT Europe and the LFA, this fascinating installation brought the latest technological innovations in ‘Smart Glass’ and ‘Digital Media Facades’ to London’s public realm. Kindly hosted outside the Royal Exchange, the  G-Glass structure displayed specially designed media content to coincide with other LFA activity around Bank Junction. The project enabled stakeholders to use both the installation’s internal space and surface display to showcase promotional and artistic content  to passers-by and draw new interest.

Building Site

Questioning the changing ownership of public space in London, Building Site invited the public to reflect on the impact of urbanisation on communities and ecosystems by creating a secret urban garden. Hidden behind construction site hoarding, the installation drew inspiration from London’s identity and the poetic narrative of Lithuanian culture, which closely links humans and nature. Throughout June, it transformed into an event space, celebrating the centenary of restored Lithuania with Lithuanian expat artists.

Great Architectural Bake-Off

For the third year running, WATG’s Great Architectural Bake-Off returned to the capital, inviting some of the world’s best architecture practices to transfer their design and engineering skills from buildings to baked goods! Taking place at the beautiful Guildhall Yard, surrounded by a fantastic audience atmosphere, the judges selected Benoy as the winners of GABO 2018. The panel were joined by Tom Heatherington, contestant on the Great British Bake-Off 2017 and architect at Richard Murphy Architects.