exhibition | press release | viewing room

Virtual Gallery Talk: The Shades Become a City
Hamed Khosravi, Marie Coulon and Manijeh Verghese
Friday 15 January 2021, 18:00 GMT, Zoom

Join a guided digital tour of the Zoe Zenghelis exhibition 'Do You Remember How Perfect Everything Was?' followed by a conversation between Hamed Khosravi, Marie Coulon and Manijeh Verghese. The two part exhibition held between Betts Project and the AA , will host the first retrospective exhibition of Zoe Zenghelis’ work. Due to recent lockdown measures the exhibition at the AA has been postponed until April and the show at Betts Project, while currently closed to the public, has a virtual space to visit online. A book to accompany the exhibition will be published by AA Publications and launched in April. Register to attend

Curator Tour with Hamed Khosravi
Friday 11 December 2020, 18:30

Join us on Friday 11 December 2020 at 18:30 for our second online live exhibition tour of Zoe Zenghelis exhibition ‘Do you remember how perfect everything was?’ with curator Hamed Khosravi.
This session will be interactive and live and there will be an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the tour.
Please click here to join the live conversation on the day and time of the event. 

If you would like any more information about particular works then please email the gallery at info@bettsproject.com

xxxx

THE BRIEF

The year 2020 marks a critical time for our collective futures. Betts Project is pleased to announce Open Call 2020, a unique opportunity for architecture students around the UK whose graduate degree shows have been suspended due to Covid-19 to exhibit their work at the gallery.

The gallery is inviting graduating architects from the academic year 2019-2020 to share their degree projects for a group exhibition planned for September 2020. Architects from all schools around the UK are welcome to submit their work.

We encourage proposals which recognise, provoke and challenge contemporary architectural discourse, with due consideration of the gallery programme at Betts Project. Works might address key themes such as ecology, equality, government transparency, the effect of digital and new technologies, and other acute issues of today and tomorrow. This open call is ultimately a platform for experimentation into ideas and media within architecture.

SUBMISSION CHECKLIST

Please note the following guidelines in relation to submission documents, file sizes and word limits:

• Images of proposed works in PDF format (15 MB maximum).

• Project abstract (300-400 words maximum) describing your work.

• Link to personal website or school database where available.

• Larger audio and video files should be sent as a link.
  

HOW TO APPLY

To enter, please send your proposal to opencall2020@bettsproject.com with your name, university and unit/programme in the subject line.

ELIGIBILITY AND CONDITIONS

Open Call 2020 is for all emerging architecture students who have had their graduate degree show suspended due to Covid-19. To be eligible for submission, the applicants must meet the following criteria:

• The submission is open to graduating architecture students only.

• The applicant may be both individual or a collective.

• The applicant must be graduating from a UK based academic institution.

• Submitted works must have been created between the 2019-2020 academic year.

• The applicant is required to ship the works to the gallery and provide detailed installation instructions.
  

TIMETABLE AND DEADLINES

Deadline for all submissions: Sunday 2nd August, 2020

Works must be shipped by the applicant and arrive no later than 26th August.

The deadline for all entries is 5 pm BST on Sunday, August 2nd 2020.

* Note that only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.

THE IMAGINARIES OF TRANSFORMATION
Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal, Frédéric Druot
a film by Karine Dana

The Imaginaries of Transformation is the first film devoted to the emblematic approach of architects Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal and Frédéric Druot, and follows their project Transformation of 530 Dwellings which was recently awarded the Mies van der Rohe Award. The project consists in the transformation of 3 social housing’s buildings of 530 dwellings. Built in the early 60’s, they needed a renovation after their demolition has been ruled out. The transformation of the dwellings full occupied, starts from the interior, to give them new qualities: more space, more light, more view, and upgrade the facilities.
The film unveils some of the intimate conversations between the three architects and is interwoven with the inspiring scenes of the construction site of the City of Grand Parc in Bordeaux.

This film was made in the context of the Architecture Biennial in Chicago (2015).
Running Time: 20 minutes (short version).

Sam Jacob: The Strange Powers of Architectural Drawings
Saturday 16 March 2019, 3pm

Please join us for the finissage of Sam Jacob's current exhibition Empire of Ice Cream at Betts Project. 
The artist will speak about the strange powers of architectural drawings and the specific kinds of agencies that they hold. For Jacob, architectural drawings belong to a special category of drawing which have unique relationships to the world. Not only do they depict and represent things as they are or illustrate what might be, but they also act as sites in which to create ideas of space and new possibilities of arranging the world. From the renaissance invention of linear perspective to the critical drawings of the 1970's, the talk will trace ideas about the ideologies of architectural drawing and speculate on the way in which drawing invents possibilities about the world. 

Admission is free. No chairs are provided and the capacity of the gallery is limited.

The Mirror Series

Assemble, Dyvik Kahlen Architects, Sam Jacob, OMMX

BETTS PROJECT invites CAMPO to run a series of talks

THE MIRROR SERIES

4 May to 27 June 2018

Organised by CAMPO (Gianfranco Bombaci, Matteo Costanzo, Luca Galofaro and Davide Sacconi).

BETTS PROJECT plays host for eight weeks to a series of public events on collective reflections on architecture. For every episode an architect will construct and offer to the audience a mirror by presenting a work of his own and a work by another author. 

Events will take place during the gallery new exhibition: De Vylder Vinck Taillieu ‘Every Day Theatre’.

Admission is free. No chairs are provided and the capacity of the gallery is very limited. We will operate on a first come first served basis.

 Programme:

OMMX – RELIQUARY: Where buildings go when they die

Friday 4 May 2018, 7pm

OMMX is a London based practice dedicated to the production of buildings and spaces thoroughly appropriate of their time and place. The office has worked on private residences, offices, public spaces, exhibitions and shops. The directors, Hikaru Nissanke and Jon Lopez both studied at Cambridge University and the AA, and have been working together since graduating. They are design fellows and BA studio masters at Cambridge.

http://www.officemmx.com

Sam Jacob: Once More With Feeling

Friday 18 May, 7pm

What happens when we remake, remodel, reenact or otherwise resurrect architecture? How do original meanings, materials, and modes become transformed in the process? Why might redoing be a useful endeavour? The discussion will be in reference to A Very Small Part of Architecture, a remaking of Adolf Loos’ unbuilt tomb for Max Dvorák.

Sam Jacob is principal of Sam Jacob Studio for architecture and design. His work spans scales and disciplines ranging from master planning and urban design through architecture, design and art projects.

Previously, Sam was a founding director of FAT Architecture where he was involved in many internationally acclaimed projects, including the curation of the British Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Biennale. He has exhibited at leading galleries and museums including the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the MAK in Vienna and the Biennale. Sam Jacob is also contributing editor for Icon magazine and columnist for both Art Review and Dezeen, Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago, visiting Professor at Yale School of Architecture and Director of Night School at the Architectural Association.

http://www.samjacob.com

Dyvik Kahlen Architects: Twins, Mirrors, Columns, Pillars

Four ideas about an object and its space, juxtaposed and presented in alternating order, two from Antoine Espinasseau and two from Dyvik Kahlen.

Friday 1 June 2018, 7pm

Dyvik Kahlen Architects is a London based office established in 2010 by Christopher Dyvik and Max Kahlen operating across various scales and sectors in the UK, Holland, Germany and Norway, collaborating with clients ranging from public institutions and developers to artists, curators and private individuals.

Underlying their work is a desire for objects and spaces that are comfortable and strangely familiar, as much as a fascination for rational and neutral form. Their ambition is  to create good spaces that improve the quality of life of those who inhabit them, be it through a piece of furniture, a building or an urban plan.

They recently featured in the Architecture Foundation’s ‘New Architecture 3’, a survey of the best emerging architects in the UK, selected by a jury of leading architects, critics and curators. They have been teaching at the Architectural Association and currently at the Royal College of Art.

http://www.dyvikkahlen.com

Assemble: Double Take

Wednesday 27 June, 7pm

Double Take is an experiment that explores the multiple perspectives generated through shared experiences of making, and considers the unusual places they in turn might lead.

Assemble is a multi-disciplinary collective working across architecture, design and art. Founded in 2010 to undertake a single self-built project, Assemble has since delivered a diverse and award-winning body of work, whilst retaining a democratic and co-operative working method that enables built, social and research-based work at a variety of scales, both making things and making things happen. Assemble were awarded the 2015 Turner Prize for their long-term collaboration with a Community Land Trust in Toxteth, Liverpool, and were shortlisted for the 2017 Mies Van der Rohe Prize.

https://assemblestudio.co.uk

Betts Project

100 Central Street London EC1V 8AJ 

info@bettsproject.com