From Sainsbury to Ziggurat

This is the view looking out to the lake by the River Yare on the campus of UEA (University of East Anglia) in Norwich. It is taken from an aerial walkway (of which there are many). This one connects with the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art, a huge modern gallery, filled with many works by Francis Bacon and Henry Moore, Giacometti and Le Corbusier.

It also has at the moment a couple of exhibitions of photography - one of which is portraiture by John Hedgecoe which you can see here (I seem to remember reading a book of photographic technique by him many moons ago). The other is by Dorothy Bohm which you can see here..

The Sainsbury Centre was designed by Norman Foster in the 1970s as one of his first major commissions. Nowadays, you will be familiar with many of his other buildings such as The Gherkin, Canary Wharf HSBC, Millennium Bridge, Millau Viaduct in France, The Reichstag in Berlin, Wembley Stadium, Crystal Island (Russia) and so many more. He, or should I say, his practice, is probably the most prolific in modern architecture.

Not that this is the only architecture at UEA. At first glance, one sees a university campus. On second look, one sees a concrete campus. Then one realises that it is very cleverly designed. The architect was Denis Lasdun who created this campus in the mid-1960s. The most striking parts are the Ziggurats which dominate the grassy bowl that surrounds the lake. The concrete stepped buildings house both laboratories and student rooms and are interconnected by walkways in the sky.

If you can't travel to Norwich to see his work, try looking at the National Theatre in London or the nearby (ex) IBM building which I think is now owned by Lord Alan Sugar.