To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
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Inspiring building sights
Currently running at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, Walter’s Way: The Self-build Revolution is a revelatory exhibition focusing on architect Walter Segal’s work with the Lewisham self-builders of the 1980s. Its curator ALICE GRAHAME tells Michal Boncza why his ideas and practice still have relevance
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
ACCORDING to Alice Grahame, who’s lived on the Walter’s Way estate for the last decade, pioneers of the self-build experiment there from 1985 to 1987 describe Walter Segal as “charming and a great bloke, very down-to-earth and willing to muck in.”
That description seems perfectly apt for an architect whose vision, she says, was “taking house building back to first principles and making a house as simply and cheaply as possible.”
His method was to build a house from readily available materials in their bought sizes, resulting in lightweight timber-framed structures based on traditional building methods.
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