‘Picturing Covent Garden piazza’ walk on Monday 16th, 5-6pm
The creation of Covent Garden piazza as an upmarket residential location was begun in 1631. The building that takes up most of the piazza today was opened two hundred years later, in 1830, to accommodate the ever-expanding flower, fruit and vegetable market. Not much remains of Covent Garden’s physical structure as it was between 1631 and 1830 – but, with the aid of contemporary images, and a lot of imagination, it is possible to recover something of how the piazza was viewed across those first two hundred years. Join Thom Braun for an illustrated walk around Covent Garden piazza.
Modernism in Bloomsbury? Counter-Intuitive Walking Tours, 17- 18 May, 5-5.50pm
Leslie Topp and Nic Sampson of Birkbeck’s Architecture Space and Society Centre will lead two linked but self-standing tours unearthing the hidden and not-so-hidden traces of architectural modernism in Bloomsbury. Behind the demure Georgian facades we’ll find stories of gentle liberation, false starts and fraught battles.
Leslie will lead Tuesday’s tour and Nic will lead Wednesdays. Meet at the entrance to 43 Gordon Square.
‘The mediated city’ walk on Wednesday 18th, 2-5pm
This guided walking tour, given by Joel McKim and Scott Rodgers, explores West End London as a lens into the media in city life and its environments. Join us to visit a range of buildings and neighbourhoods associated with major media industries. We will also observe some of the more unconventional forms of urban media and communication. Please book here
