Yup, it’s voting time, folks. Head over to the LIFT site to have your say on a futuristic events space for London. The so-caled ‘New Parliament‘ will be a temporary, portable building at the heart of the 2008 LIFT biennial. It’s going to travel the country, starting in Newham, moving to the South Bank, and then on to other parts of the UK - and beyond.
Conceived as an iconic structure like no other, the Lift New Parliament will be a meeting place that hosts performances, ceremonies, forums, talks, workshops, virtual conferences, installations, and exhibitions by day. By night, it is a beacon, an after-dark installation, transmitting sound and image, radio broadcasts, films and documentations of the day's activities, communicating the messages of its activities through theatre and the web.
Appropriately for something called the New Parliament, it’s fluttering its democratic eyelids right from the start by letting the public choose from four leading master plans.
Designs range between an origami egg, a floating platform in the sky, the ultimate circus tent and an unfurling shell structure.
Hmm, ultimate circus tent? Now why does that sound familiar?
While we’re idly making associations with white elephants, though, we should also point out that LIFT had a major hand (prehensile nose?) in bringing another pachyderm to our city - The Sultan’s Elephant - widely regarded as the greatest bit of London street theatre in living memory. So, why not repay the debt of gratitude by looking at the four designs and voting for your favourite?
The competition to design the 'LIFT New Parliament' is organised by London International Festival of Theatre and The Architecture Foundation.
