Looking to the future of Poplar, the Micro Museum’s current exhibition New Futures presents a reimagined plan for the neighbourhood as envisaged by local residents in a series of summer workshops.

Leading on from this, and for the last event in the Neighbourhood Number 9 series, Micro Museum curator Ruth Lang will be joined in conversation with Finn Williams (Common Office/GLA), Tom Coward (AOC Architecture), Suzanne O’Connell (The Decorators) and Maria Lisogorskaya (Assemble) to reflect on the role of community action within neighbourhood development.

What agencies do we need to engage with to ensure we are part of planning decisions rather than living as a consequence of them?

Saturday 30 September 2017, 3.30pm – 5pm
Ideastore Chrisp Street  (1 Vesey Path , E14 6BT)
Drinks reception at Kafe 1788 to follow (4 Vesey Path, E14 6BT)

Stop by the Lansbury Estate for Open House London! Climb Frederick Gibberd’s clock tower, join our tour of the estate, and/or build your own model clock tower!

Climb the Clock Tower
Opened on 16 May 1952, Frederick Gibberd’s Clock Tower was designed as a focal point for the Lansbury Estate’s market square. Ask a volunteer at the Micro Museum to take you up the double staircase and enjoy the view.
Friday 15, Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 September, 10am- 4pm

Build-your-own Clock Tower
Join Sophie Greenstreet at the Lansbury Micro Museum to construct your own Clock Tower model in this creative drop-in workshop. Template design by illustrator Sebastian Harding.
Saturday 16 September, 11am- 4pm

Explore the estate
Discover what makes the Lansbury Estate so architecturally important on a walking tour with historian Rosamund West.
Saturday 16 September, 2pm- 3pm (Meet at the Micro Museum)

Over the first six weeks of the exhibition New Futures creative practitioners Carlotta Novella and Tom Butler will host a series of workshops with local community groups to draw out their future aspirations and remodel Poplar accordingly. The outcomes of each workshop will be mapped onto the Micro Museum’s mobile structure and incorporated into the exhibition display.

With its status as one of London’s first multi-ethnic districts, its history of political radicalism, and its role in architectural experimentation, the area of Poplar has contributed much to London’s identity. But what makes up Poplar’s own identity? And given the current forces at play, how can this be maintained for future generations? You are invited to contribute your concerns and hopes for a future Poplar, exploring the identity and varied elements that make-up this East End neighbourhood.

Workshops: 
Mayflower Primary School, Friday 7th July, 9.15am-12.30pm
Spotlight Youth Centre, Tuesday 11th July, 6pm-7.30pm
The Men’s Cabin, Wednesday 12th July, 1pm – 3pm

PUBLIC WORKSHOP, Kafe 1788, Wednesday 26th July, 5pm (all welcome)

Carlotta Novella graduated with a BA in Construction Management in her hometown of Venice, and then an MA in Architecture: Cities and Innovation in London at Central Saint Martins. She is currently working on several projects around London and regularly travels to Sweden to tutor at Umea University of Arts. Her work addresses contemporary socio-political and cultural issues through a spatial lens, focusing on the interplay between private and public spaces. A great believer in collaborative work and making, Carlotta’s projects include temporary, mobile structures, architectural drawings, participatory workshops, events and performances.

Tom Butler has over 10 years’ experience in communicating urban identity and engaging audiences, working with organisations including the British Council, London & Partners, Arup Foresight and the Museum of London. As a creative producer, writer and editor, he specialises in the built environment and the technologies, buildings and experiences that underpin it, always keen to develop new approaches to describing people’s experiences of architecture and the city.

Poplar Film Club and the Lansbury Micro Museum present Citizen Jane: Battle for the City (2016)

Writer and activist Jane Jacobs fights to save historic New York City from ruthless redevelopment by urban planners in the 1960s. A film which examines the city of today through the lens of one of its greatest champions.

Wednesday 26 July, 6.30pm

£5, (includes drink) Book your ticket here

Kafe 1788, 4 Vesey Path, Poplar, E14 6BT

Please note: This screening follows our public workshop about the future of Poplar. All workshop participants are welcome to stay and see the film for free.

The next instalment of the Neighbourhood Number Nine exhibition series launches at the Lansbury Micro Museum on Saturday 17 June. The new display New Futures will run until Sunday 17 September and will invite visitors to contribute their own concerns and hopes for the future of Poplar.

What if the community itself could lead urban change? What would ideally be preserved, and what would be encouraged to grow?

The opening will be marked with a walking tour and model-making workshop with illustrator Sebastian Harding.

Build-your-own Clock Tower
Opened on 16 May 1952, Frederick Gibberd’s Clock Tower was designed as a focal point for the Lansbury Estate’s market square. Join illustrator and model-maker Sebastian Harding at the Lansbury Micro Museum on Saturday 17 June to construct your own Clock Tower in this creative workshop.
12pm- 4pm

Take a tour
Explore the Lansbury Estate’s architectural importance on a walking tour with historian Rosamund West.
2pm- 3pm (Meet at the Micro Museum)

Continue exploring the history of the Lansbury Estate and join us for a series of free events on Saturday 29 April 2017.

Take a tour
Join architectural historian Rosamund West on this special walking tour of the estate, focusing on public and community-led artworks.
2pm- 3pm, Meet at the Micro Museum.

Meet the artists
Celebrate the completion of a new Lansbury Micro Museum artwork, made by artists Walls On Walls with local residents. See here for more info:
3pm, at the Micro Museum

Join the Discussion
Join curator Marijke Steedman in conversation with Laurie Nouchka and Tullie Rennie (both, Walls On Walls), Loraine Leeson (Docklands Community Poster Project/cSPACE), Chad McCail (This Used to be Fields, Becontree Estate) and Alberto Duman (Fine Art Social Practice, Middlesex University) on the role of mural-making and community art practices within the built environment.
3.30pm- 5.30pm, at Trussler Hall (Grundy Street, E14 6DR)

Part of Poplar Film Club and in association with British Pathe

Join us for an evening of films exploring the theme of New Towns and social utopias, co-curated with filmmaker Christopher Ian Smith.

Smith will discuss his latest film New Town Utopia (a story of grand utopian dreams and harsh concrete realities) and give a teaser of the documentary amongst a screening of other films on the topic including the post-war public information animation Charley in New Town (1948).

Wednesday 26 April 2017
6.30pm, at Kafe 1788 (4 Vesey Path, Poplar, London E14 6BT)

@NewTownUtopia
www.newtownutopia.com

To book your place, please click here.

We’re creating a new artwork for the Lansbury Estate and we want you to get involved.

Help design and produce a large-scale artwork for the Lansbury Estate. Join Laurie Nouchka and Tullis Rennie of Walls On Walls in creating a new artistic focal point for and about the neighbourhood at Chrisp Street Market.

Monday 3 April – Sunday 9 April
10.30am – 6pm, drop-in
All Welcome, FREE
At the Micro Museum and 11 Market Way

Laurie and Tullis will be at the Micro Museum on 31st March and 1st April, 11am-3pm, providing information about the project and how to get involved. Alternatively, contact Laurie (07886 102 825) or Tullis (07753 263 272), or email wallsonwalls@gmail.com

@WallsOnWalls

Walls On Walls have been commissioned by the V&A, with support from City, University of London

Walls On Walls is an audio-visual project celebrating the rich history and evolving identity of specific communities and their relationships with the urban environment. Project participants and artists co-create site-specific works of art and sound for a chosen location.

Join architectural historian Rosamund West on a walking tour of the Lansbury Estate and explore its rich history. Meet at the Micro Museum at 2pm.

The next instalment of the Neighbourhood Number Nine exhibition series launches at the Lansbury Micro Museum on Saturday 25 February. The opening will be celebrated with a walking tour, panel discussion and drinks reception.

Walking Tour
2pm- 3pm, Meet at the Micro Museum

Panel Discussion
Working to live or living to work? Join Micro Museum Curator Ruth Lang in conversation with Ken Worpole, Ruth Potts and other guests about the role that industry plays in city and neighbourhood planning.
3pm- 5pm, Ideastore Chrisp Street

Teachers from schools on the Lansbury Estate, as well as those from further afield, were invited to explore the themes of the Micro Museum and the design of the Lansbury Lawrence Primary School in a special ‘satellite’ V&A Sanctuary.

Architect Alicja Borkowska of playful, multi-disciplinary design practice You+Me Architecture was invited to lead a hands-on investigation of the school site and its history, including a trip to the Lansbury Micro Museum and creative workshop in the Lansbury Lawrence’s dining hall. The teachers considered how the school’s spaces might be reimagined or animated to support learning activities whilst referencing and celebrating the site’s unique architectural heritage. For more about the session see here.

In January, thirty Year 6 pupils from the Lansbury Lawrence Primary School visited the Micro Museum’s exhibition New Beginnings. Here they explored the architectural history of the Lansbury Estate and their Grade II listed school.

Taking inspiration from the Peggy Angus tile murals at the schools, pupils worked with artist Matthew Raw to design and create their own ceramic tiles. The group also visited the V&A in South Kensington, learning from the ceramics collections and from the tilework in and around the Museum. Read more about the project here.

Catch a glimpse of the pupils’ work on display in the Micro Museum as part of New Horizons 1950s – 1980s, and in the Lansbury Lawrence school foyer.

Over the past couple of months we have been welcoming local residents – as well as those from further afield- into the Lansbury Micro Museum at Poplar’s Chrisp Street Market to explore the history and architectural significance of the Lansbury Estate. This weekend we are inviting visitors to share and capture their own stories about the Estate, take a walking tour of the neighbourhood and join our panel discussion Planning the Dream.

Share your stories
Hosted by Cultivaters
Friday 10am – 5pm and Saturday 10am – 3pm
At the Micro Museum

Walking Tour
2pm- 3pm, Meet at the Micro Museum

Panel Discussion
Planning the Dream. Join Micro Museum Curator Ruth Lang in conversation with Gillian Darley, John Grindrod and John Boughton about the origins of the Lansbury Estate.
3.30pm- 5pm, 11 Market Way.

Lucia Scazzocchio, who heads production company Cultivaters and creates ‘Social Broadcasts’ set up a recording booth in the Lansbury Micro Museum on Friday 25 November and Saturday 26 November to capture the personal stories, experiences and insights of Poplar’s residents. Building upon the Chrisp Street on Air archive gathered by The Decorators in 2014- which encouraged reflection on the importance of the market as a civic space at the heart of the neighbourhood- a new set of recordings was sought in order to further interrogate Lansbury’s successes and shortcomings as a living and working neighbourhood.

The recordings have been woven together to form a unique sound piece for the exhibition New Horizons 1950s-1980s which focuses on work and local industry and compliments the archival photographs, drawings and artefacts on display.

This weekend sees the launch of the Lansbury Micro Museum and its first exhibition New Beginnings, which focuses on the founding ideals of the Lansbury Estate and the role it played as a ‘model’ neighbourhood during the Festival of Britain in 1951. As a part of Open House Weekend, the Museum is open both Saturday and Sunday. Curator and architectural historian Ruth Lang will give walking tours of the estate at 12 noon each day.

Walking Tours
12noon, Saturday and Sunday, from the Micro Museum