Utopia: Review of exhibition visit at the V&A - Engineering the world: Ove Arup and Serpentine Pavillion.

The first exhibition I have visited in my Utopian project was 'engineering the world by Ove Arup. This exhibition, through a chronological journey, explores the life and work of the 20th century engineer and how his work has influenced the work of other engineers. It contains unseen prototypes, models, drawings, film and photography. Some of his early work was exhibited such as the London zoo’s penguin pool and some later ones such as the Sydney opera house.

Arup was very experimental and this was shown through his creative approaches in his work using a range of materials such as concrete, metal and wood. His designs were taken from simple ideas and expanded into something more complex such as the roof structure of the Sydney opera house. As you can see below , his idea of the roof structure came from splitting a sphere into 4 sections and from those four sections taking out different size pieces ‘shells’ and bringing them together creating the abstract design of the roof.

I think through the design of the Sydney opera house, Arup was attempting to re-engineer the city based on a Utopian view of the  world, he didn’t want the opera house to be just a building but more of a centrepiece of an alternative society.

I also visited the Serpentine Gallery at the summer house. This is designed by Bjarke Ingles -  a Danish architect. He was inspired from the idea of creating the extra ordinary out of something ordinary. He used only 3 materials and created these brick like structures and stacked them upon each other. When walking through the pavilion, i felt a sense of freedom. I was inside yet i felt like i was still out in the open because of the gaps in the bricks. This relates to my idea of a Utopian society as my perfect Utopian society is having freedom. The structure of the pavilion seems to have been inspired by the modernist movement such as the open space and fresh air.