‘Pablo Bronstein: Conservatism, or The Long Reign of Pseudo-Georgian Architecture’ at RIBA’s Architecture Gallery

Buildings.

‘Conservatism, or the Long Rein of Pseudo-Georgian Architecture’ is the third in a series of RIBA commissions, and is anchored around the work of artist Pablo Bronstein, whose works always focusses on architecture. In particular, it elaborates his exploration of neo-Georgian developments as an exemplar of British vernacular building. He has said of his work “I spend most of my life drawing, and from the drawings I make installations and performances and publications”. In this instance he has created 50 new drawings of buildings designed in a neo-Georgian style during the second half of the twentieth century, which will be framed and displayed alongside rarely-seen historical Georgian and neo-Georgian material chosen by the artist from RIBA’s collections. Furthermore Bronstein has collaborated with architectural practice Apparata – Nicholas Lobo Brennan and Astrid Smitham – to transform RIBA’s gallery space into a domestic environment in which the objects will be arranged.

1-4 Cassland Road and Well Street, Hackney E9 7AN
Ink on Paper, 21 x 14 cm. Copyright Pablo Bronstein, 2017. Courtesy Herald St, London and Galeria Franco Noero, Turin.

Design for a device for moving house
Joseph Hartland, 1833. Copyright and courtesy RIBA Drawings Collection.

“With this exhibition, I am continuing a personal history of drawing recent buildings, focusing on an architecture so unloved, yet so endemic to Britain”, says Bronstein. “It can be characterised as alluding to the Georgian, and has become a staple of every British landscape; it should be addressed as the most current British vernacular style. Yet its success, and its principal interest to me, is that of its ability to successfully and economically pander to delusions about our past, and to flatter our vanity of wealth and class. It is an architecture perfectly suited to the last 30 years of our history.”

428 Hackney Road, corner of Temple Street, E2 7AP
Ink on Paper, 21 x 14 cm. Copyright Pablo Bronstein. Courtesy Herald St, London and Galeria Franco Noero, Turin.

To complement Bronstein’s interpretation, RIBA has commissioned Apparata to design a site-specific installation in the entrance to 66 Portland Place. The installation expresses the practice’s belief that classical architecture is a progressive force, associated with leaps in human knowledge, escape from ignorance and superstition, and the birth of democracy. Through it Apparata intends to reframe our understanding of classical architecture, charting its restrictions and opportunities with contemporary mechanical construction technologies.

Buildings.

Competition design for the Daily Mail Ideal House
Donald Hanks McMorran, 1927. Copyright and courtesy RIBA Drawings Collection.

Buildings.
Buildings.

Exhibition design by Apparata. Photos: Francis Ware

‘Pablo Bronstein: Conservatism, or the Long Reign of Pseudo-Georgian Architecture’
21 September 2017 until 11 February 2018
Architecture Gallery, RIBA, London W1

Additional Images