Heatherwick at the V&A

June was a great month (despite the weather doing its best to spoil it all). What with a trip to London to see the Queen (and I did - ok from the rooftops - but still it was the Queen) and a front row seat when the Dalai Lama came to speak in Dundee, it was a fun and interesting month.

Whilst in London, apart from seeing the Queen I also visited Kew Gardens and the V&A.

At the V&A I went to see the British Design 1948 to 2012 and the Thomas Heatherwick exhibitions. I loved elements of the British Design exhibition and the Heatherwick was just amazing. 

Perhaps before Friday night's Olympic Opening Ceremony, many people might not have heard of Thomas Heatherwick outside the design world, but after his glorious Olympic cauldron rose up in the Olympic Stadium on Friday night many more will recognise his name.  Here's another article from the Design Council about the cauldron with some beautiful photos. 

Many of the reviews of the Heatherwick exhibit suggest that the space is too small and cluttered to do justice to his work, but I liked the busy and dynamic approach which you felt might be much like being inside his mind as he worked. 

His designs include the British Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010, which was called the Seed Cathedral, exhibiting seeds from the seed bank at Kew Gardens in long glass tubes that also created the walls of the building. He has also designed the new double decker London Routemaster bus including all the interiors and the East Beach Cafe at Littlehampton. From the large scale to the small, I bought his book, 600 pages, called Making, which provides commentary and beautiful photographs of every project his studio has designed and I must admit that I thought his Christmas cards were truly amazing.

Here's an interesting article about the man behind the Olympic cauldron.