Centenary archive for Spence

The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland will launch The Sir Basil Spence Archive in August, to coincide with the centenary of the architect’s birth.

A touring exhibition and a website featuring the architect of Coventry Cathedral’s work plus writings, videos and podcasts by a range of contemporary artists will kick off at the same time. Navy Blue design director Martin Tilley designed the Archive’s logo, while Edinburgh-based digital consultancy Net Resources designed the website.

‘The website and touring exhibition allow an examination and celebration of the notions of architecture and design, bringing them into the public and popular domain, in the same way that Spence attempted with his works,’ says Rebecca Bailey, head of education and outreach at RCAHMS.

The archive comprises 40 000 drawings, photographs, models and personal documents gdonated by the Spence family to RCAHMS in 2003. In August the archive will be made available to the public via the touring exhibition which also features digital art, films and sculpture derived from a series of community workshops based on Spence’s archive.

A static exhibition will open at the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland, in October, showcasing selected parts of the archive. The exhibition will run until February 2008.

For further details, visit www.basilspence.org.uk.