As part of the high powered architecture collective that is Keppie Design, Chhay was flown down to London last week for a couple of days of eating, drinking and pretending to learn about hospitals. Not wanting to be left behind Claire and I jumped on the train on Thursday night and joined her. Lugging the laptop to keep us entertained on the 5 hour journey we stayed in West Hampstead the first evening.

Friday morning while Chhay inspected hospitals we took a turn through Hampstead Heath and neighbouring Hampstead Village, both of which were delightful despite persistent drizzle. I decided that Hampstead Village was the place I wanted to live if we ever move to London until I looked in a real estate window and saw the weekly rents matching our monthly contribution in Glasgow! West Hampstead while less gentile than Hamstead Village still provided a nice urban feel and is definitely an area that I will go back to.

Friday and Saturday nights were low-key affairs spent catching up with friends in various London locales (and realising how long it takes to navigate around the big smoke).

Saturday we had booked tickets for an Alvar Aalto exhibition curated by Shigeru Ban at the Barbican Centre. Having never been to the brutalist gem (pictured above & below) that is the Barbican we took some time to explore the whole complex (another place that I wouldn’t mind living but could never afford) as well as taking in the exhibition. Shigeru had spread his signature cardboard tubes throughout the exhibition space with a wave like ceiling particularly impressive. The exhibition items reminded me of how solid Aalto’s ideas were with many of the buildings still feeling contemporary today. It gave us further inspiration for our trip to Finland in May, which we have just booked.

On Sunday after a late lunch Claire & I raced Chhay back to Glasgow – but with a smooth check-in and flights from central airports rather than budget carrier specials she comfortably beat us home even giving us an hour’s head start, somewhat disproving my train = plane time comparisons that I have been bandying about!

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 1st, 2007 at 3:16 am and is filed under architecture, tim, travel log. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.