Last Friday was the opening night of the Bartlett School of Architecture’s annual Summer Show, an event which marks triumph and fatigue in students and a look back over the work of the past year. Set in the Slade School of Art in UCL’s classical quad, the exhibition showcases a wide variety of work, from new First Year’s cardboard models, to Degree work and staggering drawings and films by Diploma and Phd students. I got a feeling this year that the consensus was that the Degree work is improving in leaps and bounds, perhaps due to the fact they actually design buildings! The projects seem to be seriously considered and understandable to the eye. Often it is so hard to get your head around a Diploma project within the confines of one or two A2 sheets, as the drawings or models have such a hard-to-fathom complexity. There also seems to be clear, distinctive styles between the units, from Unit 12’s beautiful black and white hand drawings, to Unit 11’s colourful axometrics and Unit 23’s complex built models. Below are a few photos of my own from the opening night, they mainly consist of undergraduate work, partly because the show was so busy I couldn’t get a look in the Diploma work!
