First time I heard about Dr. J.K Birksted was last year, when one of his students was preparing her dissertation at The Barlett School of Architecture. This student was Amy Sullivan-Bodiam and her descriptions were extremelly close with what I saw yesterday while I had the pleassure of assist to Dr. Jan's last book presentation "Le Corbusier and the occult" at the Darwin Theatre in the UCL. I have to admit that it was a fantastic lecture, very inspirational, rich of terms, theories and above all, of architectural ideas.
From the little I previously heard about him, it was not very difficult to recognise his presence into the lecture room. He is a tall, slim man, with short grey hair and which phisical appearance, easily differs, and very extensively, from all the new generation of trendy young architects. Perhaps the fact he is not one of them, stand out the reason of his academic look like style. Dr. Jan has indeed, a very interdisciplinary mind, which is clearly visible if you analyse the different fields of his long academic CV. By the way he expressed himself to the public, -wearing an inmaculate white, perfect ironed shirt and a black suit with a very classical pair of brown leather shoes, anyone could have easily understood, his sense of perfection for recopilating information. While I was taking my notes, I had the impression of being in front of a human archive of architectural history. He described us, and extremelly well, some of the most trascendental Le Corbusier's personal life experiences. And specially the connections of his work "to the compagnonnages, the survivors of the medieval carpenters’ and masons’ guilds, who were involved in the construction of the Unité d’habitation in Marseille".
I really enjoyed listening the contents of Dr. Jan's lecture. The main theme of discussion was clear and transcendental to nowadays interest in trying to understand what architecture is all about. Professor Colin Fournier was in charge of the event's introduction. Fournier's speech was short and concise, his words expressed certain admiration for his colleague Dr. Jan, but above all for his personal interests into Le Corbusier's life and work. After the presentation, I decided to buy the book and even had the opportunity to exchange some quick words with the author; who recommended me to see the new Le Cobusier's exhibition that, coincidentally , started yesterday in the Barbican and which hopefully, I will visit tomorrow with some old fellows from the University of Greenwich.
From the little I previously heard about him, it was not very difficult to recognise his presence into the lecture room. He is a tall, slim man, with short grey hair and which phisical appearance, easily differs, and very extensively, from all the new generation of trendy young architects. Perhaps the fact he is not one of them, stand out the reason of his academic look like style. Dr. Jan has indeed, a very interdisciplinary mind, which is clearly visible if you analyse the different fields of his long academic CV. By the way he expressed himself to the public, -wearing an inmaculate white, perfect ironed shirt and a black suit with a very classical pair of brown leather shoes, anyone could have easily understood, his sense of perfection for recopilating information. While I was taking my notes, I had the impression of being in front of a human archive of architectural history. He described us, and extremelly well, some of the most trascendental Le Corbusier's personal life experiences. And specially the connections of his work "to the compagnonnages, the survivors of the medieval carpenters’ and masons’ guilds, who were involved in the construction of the Unité d’habitation in Marseille".
I really enjoyed listening the contents of Dr. Jan's lecture. The main theme of discussion was clear and transcendental to nowadays interest in trying to understand what architecture is all about. Professor Colin Fournier was in charge of the event's introduction. Fournier's speech was short and concise, his words expressed certain admiration for his colleague Dr. Jan, but above all for his personal interests into Le Corbusier's life and work. After the presentation, I decided to buy the book and even had the opportunity to exchange some quick words with the author; who recommended me to see the new Le Cobusier's exhibition that, coincidentally , started yesterday in the Barbican and which hopefully, I will visit tomorrow with some old fellows from the University of Greenwich.
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