By Linus Rees
Inside Arup’s shiny new glass and steel building on Fitzroy Street is a new, permanent exhibition space called Phase 2. This venue will add to the increasing collection of galleries in Fitzrovia but from the perspective of professionals in the fields of design, architecture, engineering and planning.
Phase 2 is very much about the connections between art, design and engineering. The current exhibition Ways of Seeing London (showing until 18 June) uses traditional models to describe urban design as well as contemporary computer-generated images. A wooden model of Paternoster Square sits alongside a hyper-real model of the proposals for Kings Cross station. The viewer can wander around the timber model village and see the scheme from various angles, while a small cinema-like room houses the virtual reality model of Kings Cross where the viewer can navigate the building with the aid of a joystick.
Phase 2 is open to the public 9am to 6pm Monday to Friday. Also open Saturday 19 June from 10am until 6pm to mark the opening of the London Festival of Architecture 2010 in Fitzrovia. Phase 2 is located at 8 Fitzroy Street, W1T 4BJ