Lecture date: 1976-07-05
At ARTNET
The Rally: Celebrating the Art and Wit of Architecture: an event held at Art Net during the heatwave of July 1976. During the few years of its effervescent existence under Peter Cook’s curatorship, Art Net was part art gallery, part architectural exhibition space, and part tribal gathering for various ‘scenes’. Alongside the publication of the magazine Net, the space on West Central Street hosted a series of notable exhibitions, talks, and conferences. Peter Cook described Art Net as ‘a kind of ad hoc institution where we hope that the people who are talking will knock up against one another’ – a hope repeatedly fulfilled during the two weeks of The Rally. A live band heralds the start of the event.
Reyner Banham gives the opening talk, tracking British architectures movement away from the provincial towards a more international outlook exemplified by a new generation of architects. Banham discusses the Independent Group, the Smithsons, and the IDEA conference at Folkestone (a direct precursor of The Rally).
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