Sunday 30 November - Ian Nairn Bus Tour of London

This event is now fully booked!

"The way to come on St Paul's is along Fleet Street, and the way to go along Fleet Street is on top of a bus."

- Ian Nairn

A Routemaster bus tour followed by a gathering to mark the reissue of Nairn's London and celebrate the life and work of Ian Nairn (1930-1983), Britain's greatest topographical writer.

We'll be travelling around the East End and the City on the very same Routemaster bus (CUV 217C) featured on the original cover of Nairn's London (Penguin Books, 1966) with the author pictured at the wheel.

Tickets will be available from 1st October

Adults £30 Family (2 adults + 2 children) £80

Concessions £20

Ticket price includes all admissions, perambulations and access to events at the final venue.

Assemble at Foxcroft & Ginger, 68 Mile End Road from

10 am (refreshments available). Bus leaves at 11 am.

The route will include:

The Whitechapel Bell Foundry The Barbican and Golden Square

Bevis Marks synagogue Leadenhall Market & Lloyds building

Hill & Evans vinegar warehouse Postman's Park

Cloth Fair and West Smithfield Bart's Hospital

Holborn Viaduct Chancery Lane

Fleet Street Ludgate Hill

St Paul's Cathedral Cheapside

Bank of England Royal Exchange

St Ethelburga's church Christ Church, Spitalfields

King's Cross and environs Surprise final destination!

The tour will end at around 4:30pm in a wonderful central London location and will feature:

* Professor Gavin Stamp, the distinguished architectural historian, who will talk about the author and his work.

* Gillian Darley and David McKie, co-authors of Ian Nairn: Words in Place (Five Leaves Publications, 2013)

* Travis Elborough, author of The Bus We Loved: London's Affair With the Routemaster (Granta Books, 2005)

* Simon Okotie will be reading from Whatever Happened to Harold Absalon? (Salt Publishing, 2013), an existential whodunnit set entirely on a bus.

Finally Ian Nairn himself will appear on screen in one of his BBC broadcasts from the 1970s.

Nairn's London (with a new introduction by Gavin Stamp) and other books by our speakers will be on sale.

Ends 6pm or later.

Nairn returns

The book will be available very shortly

Nairn night at the LRB

Ian Nairn: Words in Place. With Gillian Darley, David McKie and Owen Hatherley

Tuesday 19 November at 7.00 p.m. 

Ian Nairn erupted onto the architectural scene in 1955 with the publication of The Architectural Review issue ‘Outrage’. A mathematician by training, and a former RAF pilot with no formal architectural education, Nairn’s visceral and savage attack on the blandness of post-war British design struck an immediate chord with a surprisingly diverse array of traditionalists and modernists, and gave rise to a new concept: that of ‘Subtopia’. Gillian Darley and David McKie’s study of Nairn - Ian Nairn: Words in Place – published by Five Leaves, introduces to a new generation an architectural critic whose work has influenced writers and critics such as J.G. Ballard, Will Self, Iain Sinclair and Jonathan Meades, who once described Nairn as ‘a great poet of the metropolis’. Gillian Darley and David McKie will be discussing Ian Nairn’s life and work, and Owen Hatherley, author of A New Kind of Bleakand A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain will be in the chair.

Full details: 

http://www.lrbshop.co.uk/product.php?productid=65337&cat=0&page=1

Ian Nairn book now available for pre-order

Nairnscape

After a lengthy summit meeting in a Methodist Chapel cafe in Leicester today, editors/writers Gillian Darley and David McKie and a senior management figure from Five Leaves Towers came up with this title for our forthcoming book on the maverick topographer, the late Ian Nairn. Mostly we walked round in circles trying to find a peaceful cafe, ideally one as beautiful as the Leicester Turkey Cafe (pictured) but open during the day. The rest of the meeting passed amicably, but we were stuck for a sub-title. Maverick and topography are good words, but more for the back cover. Architecture is a killer word for a cover as it reduces the potential readership by 99%. A celebration? Not if I can help it. Enthusiast? Thumbs down. Observer - that he was. A polemicist. A writer too. Isn't everyone? So we parted, without a sub-title. Perhaps you can help. The book won't be completed for a year, and is due out around November 2013 but having a sub-title will help immensely so we can brief a cover designer and bring in other contributors. Any sensible idea will be considered, and any on our shortlist will win a copy of the book when published.
More information? Gillian D. is the author of Villages of Vision, David Mc. is currently working on a book about surnames (alas, for a different publisher - but see his chapter in our Maps anthology). And Nairn? If you don't remember him he was indeed all of the things mentioned above. A quick google search will reveal more of course, but meantime here he is on television, completely mispronouncing the name of my hometown of Hawick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3H6XtYTx24. We are planning essays on London, Nairn's broadcasting, Britain from the air, Nairn in American, on the man himself, his influence today, and others.
Add a comment if you have any suggestions.