Festival Focus

Architecture: A catalyst for social, cultural and economic progress

30 June 2012

"Architecture, of all the arts, is the one which acts the most slowly, but the most surely, on the soul" Ernest Dimnet.

Architecture surrounds us every day, and because of that we sometimes overlook it as a potential source of inspiration. The Festival Focus on architecture encompasses the personal through to the societal.

The first half of Festival Focus on Architecture Day will explore which houses have that essential quality to facilitate and build family life and which don't. We will celebrate the pioneering nature of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation who first introduced social housing; the rise of the ‘Grand Designs’ generation who want to build their own homes, alongside the fact that an increasing number of us live in the same, or less, space now than in the era of Downton Abbey.

But architecture also has the ability to inspire confidence and prosperity on a global scale. Witness the recent exciting regeneration of Kings Cross, the transformational quality that Gehry's Guggenheim delivered to Bilbao - a city that before it opened attracted no international visitors. How can a heritage city like York embrace modern inspiring architecture - how do we use architecture to attract inward investment and a sense of a city that is confident, ambitious and open to new ideas? How do we preserve our heritage whilst avoiding becoming a pastiche? These are all questions addressed by our world-leading speakers in the second half of Festival Focus on Architecture Day.

A rolling series of events and exhibition materials from 12pm onwards, incorporating the following:

12pm Why we build , Talk by architectural critic, Rowan Moore
12.45pm A debate on The wonder of home? Which places have it and what can architecture contribute?
2pm A discussion about the King's Cross Regeneration Project
3.30pm, Public debate on the challenge of embracing architecture in a heritage city

Exhibitions

Throughout the Festival Focus day on Architecture Day Exhibitions will take place in the Ron Cooke Hub:

An exhibition presenting work on Kings Place.

A photographic display of entrants to the What I love about my home public photographic exhibition.

An architectural exhibition on developments in York on display in the atrium.