The Building Site / London Festival of Architecture

About

The Building Site is an urban installation, designed by landscape architect Sigita Simona Paplauskaite. Featured as part of London Festival of Architecture, the Building Site is imagined as section of secluded Lithuanian forest located next to St Paul’s Cathedral. Sigita Simona has designed an immersive environment which seeks to confront rapid urban development and its impact on human relationships to nature. 

Opening for public from the 8th – 30th June, The Building Site raises questions about the ownership of public space in London and invites us to reflect on the consequences of urbanisation on local communities and natural ecosystems. The installation occupies a significant section of public space, creating an alternative construction site - a signature mark for London in transition. Utilising the aesthetic of a temporary hoarding from the outside, the pavilion offers an unexpected forest-like experience from within. 

The Building Site was inspired by the poetic narrative of Lithuanian writer, poet and philologist Vincas Kreve-Mickevicius’s novel ‘Herdsman and the Linden Tree’. The fictional novel describes the parallel lives of the oldest man and oldest tree in the village, exposing a human connection to nature and mapping how this relationship changed over time. Reflecting on the highly engineered environments of both humanity and nature, The Building Site seeks to create a confrontation between the life of man and the living world in an age of rapid external pressures. 

Every weekend The Building Site will host poetry readings, music performances, video screenings and debates over the course of the London Festival of Architecture. During these events, visitors will have a chance to explore the diversity of unique contemporary interpretations of human relationships to nature. 

Thanks to: 
Lithuania. Real is beautiful
Lietuvos kultūros institutas / Lithuanian Culture Institute 
Loving Your Garden, Xoan Perez
Indorama
Coles Nurseries
Bruns Pflanzen
Lithuanian Travel Tourism Board

Follow the project and our events schedule here—
Twitter: @buildingsiteLFA
Instagram: @buildingsiteLFA
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/207931996599549/
Website: sigitasimona.com
 

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