About this talk

Running time: 39 minutes

The British architect Nigel Coates was born is 1949, and educated at Nottingham University and the AA, where he taught intermittently between 1974 and 1979. After a spell of teaching in the USA he set up his own London practice in 1983 and was joined by Doug Branson in 1985. The following year they expanded into Japan.

The title of his talk, Coates says, "summarises a whole strategy of work, that is the investigation of how cities can grow and continue and have a sense of the future, but without falling into either mini-conservationist continuation of the present or a wholesale redevelopment".

The old monuments remain but the space between can be invaded by a layered approach of functions, built little by little, overlapping and influencing the appearance of buildings. The city is always in a state of flux. Coates uses drawing in a mind-wandering way to avoid over-rationalising what the subject might be, and to try to communicate his art to the public. Arrows in a drawing are his trademark and give a sense of movement.

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