Archived lectures

Charles I’s obsession for collecting art began when he saw the magnificent collection of Spain’s King Philip IV. He then purchased the fabulous collection of the Dukes of Mantua including works by Titian and Raphael; he engaged Rubens to paint the ceiling of the Banqueting House in Whitehall and he appointed Van Dyck as his Court Artist. Overall, he amassed over 2000 works, thereby bankrupting the nation.

People were bridging the Thames in the Bronze Age - 1,500 years before the Romans built London Bridge. The last 200 years have seen over 50 new crossings over and under the river. Some are great feats of engineering, some are architecturally elegant. Every crossover changes the city’s genetic code.

MacDonald Gill, brother of the sculptor Eric Gill, was an architect, illustrator, graphic designer and letterer, best known for his eye-catching pictorial map posters for London Underground and the Empire Marketing Board. He created beautiful painted map panels for buildings, magnificent murals for churches and Cunard liners as well as the alphabet and regimental badges for the Imperial War Graves Commission.