{"id":1323,"date":"2013-06-17T20:54:37","date_gmt":"2013-06-17T20:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benbansal.me\/?p=1323"},"modified":"2013-06-17T21:42:22","modified_gmt":"2013-06-17T21:42:22","slug":"souzou-hyde-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/?p=1323","title":{"rendered":"Souzou, Hyde Park"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">We spent an afternoon with friends two weekends ago, first to see an exhibition in the Wellcome Collection near Euston Station followed by a stroll around Hyde Park. Here we walked past London&#8217;s possibly most exclusive real estate address (1 Hyde Park) on our way to this year&#8217;s Serpentine Gallery Pavillon, designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sunday02.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"sunday02\" src=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sunday02-580x433.jpg\" width=\"580\" height=\"433\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>Serpentine Gallery Pavillon by Sou Fujimoto<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em><\/em><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The excellent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wellcomecollection.org\/whats-on\/exhibitions\/souzou.aspx\"><em>Souzou: Outsider Art from Japan <\/em><\/a>is absolutely worth seeing before it ends at end of June. This is art made largely in social welfare institutions, without an audience in mind. I wasn&#8217;t aware of the term and concept before and found it interesting to read the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wellcomecollection.org\/whats-on\/exhibitions\/souzou\/introduction.aspx\">curator&#8217;s essay<\/a> on the differing origin of the idea in a European and Japanese context.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Here is the exhibition&#8217;s advertisement:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VwfFU2Bw0_g\" height=\"315\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.onehydepark.com\/#\/index\">One Hyde Park<\/a>\u00a0was the world&#8217;s most expensive apartment development when opened two years ago, at least that&#8217;s how the legend goes. Starchitect firm\u00a0Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners has created a luxury enclave for the world&#8217;s super rich.\u00a0Naturally for this location and the project&#8217;s scale, much has been written about the building&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/artanddesign\/2011\/jan\/23\/one-hyde-park-candy-brothers\">architecture<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sunday04.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1324 alignnone\" alt=\"sunday04\" src=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sunday04-580x433.jpg\" width=\"580\" height=\"433\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sunday04-580x433.jpg 580w, https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sunday04.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Residents want to be in the heart of London while maintaining the privacy they&#8217;re used to from comparable and more escapist developments outside the city centers. That is probably why the architecture is\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.architectural-review.com\/view\/london-uk-one-hyde-park\/8612124.article\">not iconic or monumental<\/a>\u00a0but\u00a0almost subdued. There is not much going on outside except for security personnel doing their rounds. Cars are quietly coming in through underground parking.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sunday03.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1325 alignnone\" alt=\"sunday03\" src=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sunday03-580x433.jpg\" width=\"580\" height=\"433\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sunday03-580x433.jpg 580w, https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sunday03.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">This year&#8217;s pavillon at the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Serpentine_Gallery\">Serpentine Gallery<\/a> made for a great final stop on our tour. At 41, Suo Fujimoto is the world&#8217;s youngest ever architect to design this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiegel.de\/kultur\/gesellschaft\/serpentine-pavillons-mach-doch-was-du-willst-a-648900.html\">prestigious temporary structure<\/a>. It looks a little bit like a cloud from far away and turns into a white steel grid, interspersed with plastic to keep away the rain and offer seating area for those climbing the pavillon.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sunday01.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1327\" alt=\"sunday01\" src=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sunday01-580x433.jpg\" width=\"580\" height=\"433\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sunday01-580x433.jpg 580w, https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/sunday01.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">This is the architect&#8217;s first ever commission in the UK. His <a href=\"http:\/\/www.archdaily.com\/tag\/sou-fujimoto\/\">body of work<\/a> is impressive and surely to gain more prominence given this career boost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We spent an afternoon with friends two weekends ago, first to see an exhibition in the Wellcome Collection near Euston Station followed by a stroll around Hyde Park. Here we walked past London&#8217;s possibly most exclusive real estate address (1 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/?p=1323\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-art","category-london"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1323"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1342,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323\/revisions\/1342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}