Design Museum – SpecNews

Don’t destroy the Sir John Cass Faculty – a wonderful part of creative learning and life

The Cass is named after Sir John Cass, who established one of London’s oldest education charities with a historical mandate to found a polytechnic institute at Aldgate to serve the population of east London.
As Jonathan Ive, Apple’s chief design officer, has said, it is essential to develop the skills of making through hands-on learning.
We should know by now that learning is not restricted to the purely academic: making is also learning.
We, the undersigned, call on London Metropolitan University to review its current strategic plan, One Campus, One Community, in light of its consequences for the Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design.
We call on London Metropolitan to pursue a two-site solution that keeps the education of art, making and design alive and kicking where The Cass began – in London’s East End.

The last British Art Show was the best so far.
AS
The dynamism, unexpectedness and sheer abundance of the art market makes these art fairs a window on the new – and the old.
Jonathan Jones
Groundbreaking attempt to place pop art in its global context or another rehash of familiar names and images?
This long-overdue survey should allow us to focus more on the art, less on the man.
The spiritual art of the past echoes in his work – martyrs, triptychs, meditation, all that sacred jazz.

That view of 20 Fenchurch Street that brought you to tears is the exact opposite of what he wanted.
Either 20 Fenchurch Street is there as long as it endures, or we do something about it.
After a day in Paris at Frank Gehry’s exhilarating fish-like, wave-like I found myself on the South Bank almost weeping at the view of 20 Fenchurch Street.
I still find it very hard to accept that Centre Point, a building that once personified hit-and-run property development, should now be a listed building.
Or even Sant’Elia, although buildings like 20 Fenchurch Street do seem to exploit modern engineering to create futurist dreams that would be a lot better left on paper.