John Pawson: Plain Space, Design Museum

Sunday was the last day of the John Pawson exhibition at the Design Museum in London. Pawson is one of my absolute favorite architects and I had been meaning to go see it since I moved here. Other things got in the way until I got an email from the museum reminding me that January 30th was the last day. It was go time! Jeff has a few very generous friends at work who have offered to watch the dogs for us, but I couldn't risk someone bailing (hey, it happens!) so I arranged for them to stay with a sitter for the day. We dropped them off there at 9AM and headed to the Birmingham train station. The Virgin Pendolino trains run between Birmingham and London Euston and take a little over an hour. As I've said before, that is quite a long way by British standards, but definitely beats the cost of actually spending the night in London. It still isn't cheap for a day trip, though. Off-peak roundtrip tickets cost about £44 per person.

We took the train the London Euston and hopped on the tube to London Bridge station. From there we walked about a mile on The Queen's Walk, along the south bank of the Thames.

There you can see the Tower of London off in the distance, the HMS Belfast, and the Tower Bridge.

We were quite happy to make it to the museum. It was hovering in the 30s in London (even lower back in Dorridge) and walking next to the water didn't make it any warmer.

The exhibition was on the top floor. Jeff and I particularly liked an area that showed large pictures of some of Pawson's completed works in combination with very large samples of the materials used in each building.

Wood and marble is one of my favorite materials pairings.

A large part of the show centered on Pawson's work on the Novy Dvur Monastery in the Czech Republic, commissioned by Cistercian monks and built on the grounds of a 100 yr old abandoned farm. Talk about a cool project! I really enjoyed seeing the design process documented from beginning to end. Displays included correspondence between the Father Abbot and Pawson. Amazingly, Pawson had some guidance from St. Bernard, who laid out an architectural model for the Cistercian order in the the 12th century, emphazing the quality of light and proportion and simplicity.

There were many architectural models on view. It is amazing how real they look.

Of course, as the letters between Pawson and the Abbot showed, they also discussed much more mundane details.

I'm so happy I was able to see this exhibition. Jeff's main comment, "It's so... white. Now I see why you like him so much." Guilty as charged!

We had a delicious late lunch at Orsini (Italian restaurant) across from the V&A and caught a train back home. The ride was uneventful and quiet until an American businessman got on the phone with wife.

"Yep, I seen the changing of the guards at Buckin'ham palace. You know Buckin'ham palace? It's like the British version of the White House. Mm hm and I seen the big church type thing they got over here. And Big Ben. And then I went to the Hard Rock Cafe."

Classic.