The end of the year
The end of the year and a few thoughts and images of the ongoing ‘Building the Revolution’ exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in London
We are now in that odd time after Christmas and before New Year, sitting in a kind of Limbo. It has been an extraordinary year with Europe having financial problems, O.K. that is a bit of an understatement. The middle east has political problems, again an understatement. Personally it has been good year, with the publication of ‘The Shirt Off his back’, a book I wanted to write when the credit crunch first hit. It took a little longer than I had hoped, but it is out now and, I hope, worth it.
There are a few images that didn’t make it onto the blog. The first was something that intrigued me when I saw it propped on a bench in Kew Gardens on Boxing day. When you read it you see why it was there, a sad occasion but a touching tribute for someone obviously loved and missed. 
My lovely nephew’s girl friend, has started baking cakes for a farmers market and I tasted one she made, a light-ish fruit cake similar to a Dundee cake. Here is the one she made for us as a Christmas cake, much nicer than those horrid rich ones. She decorated the top with glace fruits. The best Cake I have ever tasted. Siobhan Armstrong is selling at the farmers market at Camberwell Green in South East London 
One of the most thrilling, for me , exhibitions I visited this year was ‘Building the Revolution’: It is on until 22nd of January 2012, so if you have time go and see it. In the Sackler Wing of Galleries at the Royal Academy of Art.
Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935. As you can see from the dates it was a tiny period of history, but a very exciting and radical one in terms of design. Sadly it was short lived and the Soviet Union went back to pastiche all too soon. Fired by the Constructivist art that emerged in Russia from c.1915, architects transformed this radical artistic language into three dimensions, creating structures whose innovative style embodied the energy and optimism of the new Soviet Socialist state.
El Lissitzky, Sketch for Proun 6B, 1919-21
Richard Pare, Shabolovka Radio Tower, 1998 154.8 x 121.9 cm. Richard Pare, courtesy Kicken Berlin. © Richard Pare.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a reconstruction of Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International, known as ‘Tatlin’s Tower’, specially commissioned from Jeremy Dixon of Dixon Jones Architects has been installed in the Royal Academy’s Annenberg Courtyard.
A supporting exhibition in the Architecture Space (23 September – 29 January 2012) explores the conception, vision and symbolism of Tatlin’s Tower and uncovers the intriguing process undertaken for its special recreation at the Royal Academy.
For those of you who have taken time to read this blog, thank you. Please write and let me know if there is anything you would rather I focused on, and if you found anything interesting, and also what you felt was a waste of time. Happy new Year and peace to all.
