From the design community in London, a genius idea for raising charitable funds:
Every year since 2010, a philanthropic group of designers called 10 x 10 lays a grid of 100 squares over a particular section of London and invites 100 star architects and designers to create a collective portrait of their city. The resulting drawings, paintings, and prints—10 x 10 Drawing the City of London—are exhibited and auctioned off in late November. Proceeds go to Article 25, a charity comprised of design and building specialists, who are devoted to creating adequate housing and sustainable shelter around the world; this year Article 25 will use the funds to design and build Street Children’s Centres in Kenya and Ghana.
This year, the 10X10 grid was placed over East London, and features work by international architects Zaha Hadid and David Adjaye. All of the art can be viewed online and is currently on display at The Crossing at King's Cross in London (see map below), where it'll be auctioned by Sotheby's this Thursday night, November 28. If you can’t make it to the auction, you can bid online—opening bids for many of the pieces at £100. “As we cherish and appreciate the city where we live, we thank London and provide valuable, life-enhancing design to cities around the world where it is otherwise unaffordable,” says 10X10 founder Tim Makower of Makower Architects. "Wouldn't it be great to see design communities all over the world adopt and replicate 10X10 in their cities?"
Here are some of the artworks we're following:
Above: View from Curtain Road by Jenny Harborne, founder of IMAGO Architects and a specialist in architectural glass. The print offers a view of the top of 30 St Mary Axe, aka the Gherkin building.
Above: Pie & Mash by Navnit Mistry. An architect with a passion for painting, Mistry exhibited at this year's Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. "My artwork depicts one of the oldest and famous traditions associated with the East End of London—Pie & Mash!," he says. "F. Cooke, Pie & Mash, has been trading in Hoxton since the 1800's, still providing the much loved and traditional pie and mash, ensuring that it remains part of London's heritage."
Above: Nepotism alert: Christ Church from Weaver's Loft is by Bill Hanway, my architect husband. Bill travels around the world working on urban projects, but London is home. Inspired by an image on the blog Spitalfields Life, he captured a view of Nicholas Hawksmoor's 18th-century masterpiece Christ Church from the unexpected vantage of a Spitalfields house that once belonged to a Huegenot silk weaver.
Above: Tea by architectural model maker and managing director of AMODELS, Christian Spencer-Davies. The Shoreditch street scene incorporates three-dimensional figures that Spencer-Davies describes as "local characters carrying bicycle wheels, guitars, rucksacks, and squatting to have a fag."
Above: Artist and illustrator Rob Ryan's My Home is a limited edition print that features his romantic writing and intricate cut paper designs. Coming to London? A visit to Ryantown, the artist's shop on the Columbia Road, is worth the trip.
Looking for ideas for how to display your artwork? The curator of painting and sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Janet Bishop, gives us her Expert Advice: 10 Tips on Displaying Art at Home.
The map below shows the location of The Crossing, at 1 Granary Square, Kings Cross, London, where the auction will be held this Thursday, November 28, at 7:30 pm. Let us know if you win anything.
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