Walks, Symposium and Book launch

Brutalist Speculations and Flights of Fancy is a publication plus a day of exploration of six of Sheffield’s  Brutalist buildings.  Starting with guided walks to some of the buildings, followed by a symposium, book launch and reception, the day will explore proposals and enquiries, speculations, and flights of fancy based around the position that these six Brutalist building hold in Sheffield today.

In his book ‘A Guide to The New Ruins of  Modernism’ architectural commentator and Guardian journalist Owen Hatherley says that Sheffield ‘just doesn’t seem to know how good it is’ and that its modernist architectural heritage is ‘what make Sheffield different from Leeds, or Manchester, or Birmingham’.

Twenty artists and writers from Sheffield and Berlin have been invited to contribute, to consider the position that these buildings hold now (part of a much loved landscape or irrelevant, robbed of their utopian ideals) and speculate on their possible futures (for this project budgets are without ceiling, building regulations hold no barriers). These extraordinary buildings are sometimes forgotten, often reviled, loved, misunderstood, and contested, but form a vital part of Sheffield’s architectural heritage.

The project, curated by artist and lecturer Julie Westerman, includes the following artists:

From Berlin: Christl Mudrak, Dominique Hurth, Olivia Reynolds, Ines Lechleitner, Irene Pätzug, Antonia Low, Oliver Zwink, Valentin Hertweck.

From Sheffield: Jaspar Joseph-Lester, Professor Sharon Kivland, T C McCormack, Gary Simmonds, Becky Shaw, Mathew Harrison, Hester Reeve, Chloe Brown, Penny McCarthy, Michelle Atherton, Julie Westerman.

And writers/speakers:

Owen Hatherley (Guardian journalist, Author of ‘A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain’ & ‘ Uncommon” a book on Pulp)

Steve Pile (Professor of Human Geography, the Open University and author of ‘Real Cities: modernity, space and the phantasmagorias of city life’)

Professor Jane Rendell (Director of Architectural Research at the Bartlett, UCL, architectural designer and historian, art critic and writer)

The optional dinner will take place in Site Gallery in the evening, we welcome you to join us! Please ensure you book this 24 hours in advance of the event.