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Thinking Through Drawing

BSR Chris Wilkinson Sketch Exhibition at The British School at Rome, Italy

22 Jun 2016

Thinking Through Drawing: The British School at Rome

Architecture Exhibition at the BSR

From 4th to 26th of July 2016

Thinking through drawing: Chris Wilkinson

This summer, the British School at Rome will host an exhibition by the architect Chris Wilkinson RA bringing together thirty years of his architectural drawings and sketch books.

The exhibition Thinking Through Drawing: Chris Wilkinson follows on from his UK exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and will delve into the architect’s creative process revealing the central role that drawing plays within the development of a design.

To launch the exhibition, Chris Wilkinson will be holding a lecture on Thinking Through Drawing at the British School at Rome on Monday 4 July at 18.30 followed by an opening reception.

Chris Wilkinson believes passionately in the importance of drawing by hand, particularly in an age dominated by digital media. This exhibition includes a selection of Wilk inson’s sketchbook s, drawings and watercolours from the last three decades.

The sketches will showcase his design thinking on four projects, from initial site studies and early concepts to design development and construction. The projects including the Mary Rose Museum, Portsmouth, Maggie’s Centre, Oxford, the Kings Cross Gasholders and the new Dyson Campus in Malmesbury, which are all located in the UK, have been selected for their diversity. A specially commissioned film by Candida Richardson will accompany the exhibition.

Talking about the exhibition, Chris Wilkinson says: ‘It is an honour to have my sketches at the British School at Rome. For me, the process of drawing helps to inform my architecture. Like centuries of architects before me, I enjoy sketching, both what I see and what I’m thinking. Drawing being the language for communicating ideas, is still very much part of the design process.’

Chris Wilkinson OBE RA DipArch RIBA Hon FAIA FCSD is the founder of WilkinsonEyre, one of the world’s leading architectural practices. After working in several leading architectural practices, he set up his own practice Chris Wilkinson Architects, then formed a partnership with Jim Eyre which later became Wilkinson Eyre.

The practice achieved success with major infrastructure projects in the UK including two Jubilee line projects, Stratford Station and Stratford Market Depot, as well as with Millennium Projects, Explore @Bristol, Magna and the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, which won the Stirling Prize in 2001 and 2002. Chris has won prizes for the Guangzhou International Finance Centre, China, the Mary Rose Museum, UK, and the Crown Sydney Resort Hotel on the Darling Harbour Waterfront, Australia. The practice is currently working on the restoration of Battersea Power Station in London and new towers in Sydney, Melbourne and Toronto.

His contribution to architecture has been recognised with an OBE in the Millennium Honours list, election to the Royal Academy of Arts, an Honorary Fellowship of the American Institute of Architecture and Honorary doctorates at Westminster University and Oxford Brookes University. He has been a Commissioner of English Heritage and is Patron of the Civic Trust Awards. He is author of Supersheds and The Sketchbooks
of Chris Wilkinson, co-author of Bridging Art & Science, Exploring Boundaries,
Tectonics and WilkinsonEyre/Works.

WilkinsonEyre on e-architect