About this talk

Running time: 39 minutes

The British architects Gordon Benson and his partner Alan Forsyth both graduated from the Architectural Association School in 1968, worked for the London Borough of Camden until 1978 when they set up in practice together. Benson held the Chair at the University of Strathclyde from 1986 - 1990, and became visiting professor at the University of Edinburgh. The partners have won many prizes and awards and their work has been widely published and exhibited.

The buildings they describe in their talk are all very different. The Oratory is an internalised building with no external figure. In contrast, the Museum Of Scotland (see Benson's later talk Genesis Of A Museum (Museum Of Scotland)) looks onto buildings from above and below and from a great distance. The Japanese projects differ not only in size and nature but also conceptually: "whereas in the museum the sub-text and the spatial narrative of the building itself has to be below the surface, in the Japanese buildings the sub-text is effectively the text".

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