Lynch and Luxemburg

In this twelfth Cass Research Seminar Rut Blees Luxemburg and Patrick Lynch will consider the problems of dwelling, aesthetic value and city participation.

Lynch and Luxemburg – On Dwelling and Beauty

In this twelfth Cass Research Seminar, Rut Blees Luxemburg and Patrick Lynch will consider the problems of dwelling, aesthetic value and city participation. Through art and architecture practice, they will take us on a visual journey through London to explore an alternative view of urban beauty, perception and possibility.

Rut Blees Luxemburg will ask:

• What experience of beauty does the city offer to its inhabitants?
• Is it mainly at the margins that beauty can be found in London?
• What does the encounter with the beautiful engender in the citizen?
• Can an aesthetic experience open up access to ideas which address larger questions of public life?
• How can we dwell poetically in the contemporary city?

Dwelling is something Patrick Lynch directly and deliberately leaves unsaid in his published research. Yet his ideas on the topic have gradually become more articulate, now that other people, such as Rut, have taken it on via film, re-presentation and re-appropriations, for example. Patrick and Rut’s work overlaps in considering participation as a method and ideological position; and civic culture as a form of creative sharing.

Rut Blees Luxemburg is an artist who deals with the representation of the city, ranging from photographs and publications to public art installations. Rut has exhibited widely throughout the UK and Europe and her work is held in collections such as the Tate and the Centre Pompidou. Her work is part of the survey exhibition London Nights at the Museum of London in spring 2018. Rut created the iconic cover for The Streets’ Original Pirate Material and is a reader in urban aesthetics at The Royal College of Art.

Patrick Lynch is the founding director of Lynch Architects, an award-winning practice based in Hackney. Patrick completed his PhD, entitled Practical Poetics, at The Cass, with Peter Carl, Joseph Rykwert and Helen Mallinson in 2015. He is the author of a number of books, most recently, Civic Ground (Artifice, London, 2017); is Visiting Professor at Liverpool University and has taught at Cambridge, The Architectural Association, The Cass and Kingston. Lynch Architects work at a variety of scales, from public buildings, offices and apartments to private houses. The work of the practice has been widely exhibited and published including at The Venice Biennale in 2008 and 2012.

The Cass Research Seminar is a forum for exploring cross-disciplinary, phenomenological, academic and real-life experiences and ideas. Two presentations will be followed by a lively panel discussion between the audience, a professional discussant and the two speakers.