Plop art or housing?
Picture: University of Reading School of Architecture student grid shell at end of year show
Ambassador for Innovation at RIBA, Professor Flora MacDonald gave an interesting talk on the value of art in the regeneration of cities at our fifth forum at Burlington House, London.
Flora posed the question whether it was better to commission artists to create one-off art installations such as the silver ball in Cardiff Bay where she lives, which she describes as 'plop art' or spend the money on building homes?
Having been given government funding to look into the value of arts and humanities regeneneration around housing, for the newly devised and Glasgow University led initiative, CaCHE, Flora says that art should have a social value. She worries that there just isn't enough research to show that 'art' can create proper regeneration and warns of the effect of it on gentrification of areas.
Watch Flora talking in the video below at our forum and see above the campus with installation by students from the School of Architecture at Reading University where she also works as a Professor.