RCA Society

From Brunel to Wallace and Gromit

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Thursday, 11 December 2008, 7.30pm, Imperial College London
This event is free, but space is limited, so please reserve your seat by completing your details using this link http://www.designlondon.net/stir .
Venue: Lecture Theatre 220
Mechanical Engineering
Imperial College London
Exhibition Road
South Kensington
London SW7 5BN

Much has been written and said about the public image of the engineer and the engineering designer in Britain: from the glory days of Brunel and the Victorian inventors to the lower esteem of contemporary practitioners in the modern era. This lecture looks at the changing public image of the engineer from a different perspective - that of popular film: from heroic modernists in the 1930s to Spitfire designers in the 1940s, to bridge-builders on the River Kwai in the 1950s, to Q branch in Whitehall in the 1960s, to Wallace and Gromit today. The lecture asks 'do these public images matter?', 'is the cultural realm more important than people realise?', 'what image of the engineer does tomorrow's generation have?' and 'what is to be done?'

Sir Christopher Frayling:

Sir Christopher Frayling is Rector of the Royal College of Art in London, and Professor of Cultural History there. He is also Chairman of the Arts Council England.

Educated at Repton School and Churchill College Cambridge, Sir Christopher joined the RCA full-time in 1979. As the College's first Professor of Cultural History, he founded the Department of Cultural History there and established pioneering postgraduate courses in the history of design (with the V&A), modern cultural theory, the conservation of artefacts (with the V&A and Imperial College) and Visual Arts Administration (with the Arts Council and the Tate Gallery). As author of two substantial books on the history of the Royal College of Art, Sir Christopher is also the College's historian. In 1996, he was appointed Rector. On New Year's Eve 2000, he was knighted for "services to art and design education".

Sir Christopher Frayling is the longest-serving Trustee of the Victoria and Albert Museum (since 1983). He is chairman of the Crafts Study Centre in Farnham and was previously Chairman of the Design Council. He remains Chair of the Royal Mint Advisory Committee.

When asked what his main recreation is, he tends to reply "...finding time ..."
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