Unit 08

Unit brief

Midland Cities II – Nottingham
Translations

Unit 08 will continue to focus on the urban development of cities in the Midlands and propose architectural interventions as opportunities for civic renewal.

We will investigate how the architectural language that Andrea Palladio developed in the Quattro Libri dell’Architettura influenced Inigo Jones and his work and informed his designs of public space. Jones trained as a painter, was an acclaimed stage set and costume designer, and gained renown following his appointment as Surveyor-General of the King's works in 1615.

His architecture and urbanism was developed through a series of considered translations of the buildings he visited in Rome, Venice and Vicenza, introducing a new architectural language to the UK. We will study his built and unbuilt works, including the Covent Garden piazza, The Queen’s House, Banqueting House, and his designs for Whitehall and the Strand. The unit will also travel to Rome, as Jones did.

Our sites will be in the city of Nottingham, approached through carefully drawn survey, model-making and thorough research (Project 1). We will design and propose a "scene", an urban public stage within the city (Project 2), and a public building, theatrical in nature (Project 3), exploring the dynamic relationship between the proposed architectural interventions and the collective of the city. Research, writing and making will be continuous throughout the year, structured through weekly seminars.

Inigo Jones’ Banqueting House provided a backdrop to the city, and symbolically, the execution of Charles Iin 1649. Its grand hall was used as a venue for feasts, masques, as a political chamber, subsequently a market, and now a museum. In the same vein, our proposals will be individual architectural compositions that face both inward and outward, as settings to the varying activities of contemporary life in Nottingham.