Last month I passed my viva, bringing to an end 4 yrs research into the shopping centre in 70s Britain. My thesis looked at how the shopping centre shaped, and was shaped by, changing attitudes towards the urban experience and consuming, as well as key debates about design, architecture and space.

So great to see a few of Peter Hand's much loved play sculptures are back! They were commissioned for shopping centres across Britain but have all but disappeared...

My favourite picture of Poole's wooden animals: temporarily reinstalled in the Dolphin Centre in 2020 with face masks 😷

Spotted in hair and makeup beforehand!

Not quite a desk view at my new role, but from the roof of MK Gallery there is a pretty luscious view of Milton Keynes shopping centre

Obligatory photo of the late Brian Clarke’s stained glass (1988-90) in the Victoria Quarter when in Leeds

Of course there is a Schröder House adjacent bird house tucked away in Central Milton Keynes! 🐦

Great to see two of Peter Hand's ducks from Friars Square in Aylesbury displayed at Bucks Museum over Easter.

Commissioned for the shopping centre in the late 60s, they were sold off in the 80s, disappearing from public view like
so many of Hand's play sculptures...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Liliane Lijn’s White Koan was originally installed in Plymouth as part of the nationwide open-air exhibition, City Sculpture Project 1971.

It was then purchased for Uni of Warwick’s public art collection, where it has been part of student life ever since…

warwickmrc.wordpress.com/2014/09/23/t...

Elisabeth Frink’s Desert Quartet in plaster on show at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.