Skin, bones, and London Redesigned

Wednesday the 21st we ventured off to the Somerset House on the Embankment which houses several different galleries. One in particular that we were interested in was called Skin and Bones, dealing with the parallel themes found in the design of fashion and architecture over the last half century. Before we got to that we were intrigued by a free exhibit entitled Open City, which was put on by a group called Design for London, currently working on a comprehensive massive overhaul of the entire city’s layout and ethos. Where the streets form dangerous crosswalks and traffic jams, pedestrian zones would be created, waterways would be utilized for transit, green zones would be created in previously polluted spaces, and a focus on the history and organic nature of the city would be manifested in new developments. Overall a very well put together proposal and plan, and even included a large board where anyone could post their reactions and suggestions, some of which had already been added into the overall master plan. Afterwards we moved on to the Skin and Bones exhibition, which was extremely informative and more interesting than I expected, specifically the fashion which I generally don’t understand very well. Each section was classified by an idea, for example “Shelter” or “Weaving”, which was then represented by the work of fashion designers and architects, with scale models, photos, and video clips illustrating their implementations of their ideas. Such famous architects as Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind and Toyo Ito were included in the exhibit, many of whose work I was unfamiliar with, and the combination of the displays and Tripp’s knowledge of their other work and backgrounds made the entire experience both exciting and revelatory.