dot.tour 2009 - a success!!

So Dot. was in London this weekend for a bit of professional pleasure. With the weather forecast for some well earned sun, our cameras fully charged, oyster card loaded and our sketchbooks dusted off, we hit London on a tourist mission! Dot.tour 2009 was an organised architectural tour of London. We (along with various creative professionals) have been meaning to make this trip in a long time, and as such we took in the basics. A chance to have a few beers talk over business and the effects of the recession on our small companies, while enjoying some of the finest structures London has too offer.

Dot. were joined throughout the day by Henry Turner, director of www.gardenvisit.com, Steve Sayers of http://www.studio4photo.co.uk  fame and Green Rock Media's Simon Green, to name a few. Also on the trip was, soon to be launched www.youarearchitect.com David Oliver, who was compiling more content for his architectural reference website, ready to launch in the early summer. 

Above is the newly constructed and rather exciting visitors centre just south of St Paul's' Cathedral. Designed by Make architects, it creates an amazing old/new juxtaposition with London's most prolific building - St Paul's'.  Clad in Stainless steel panels, and with vast expanses of glass to the front, the scheme offers rather unusual reflections of St Paul's across its surfaces, which helps make the two sit so well together. We also managed to take in the British Museum, with Norman Fosters awe inspiring courtyard development. Again, we are shown how well old and new structures can meet, and work so well together, no better shown in this image, where the highly engineered roof sails down to meet the Ancient Greek Style foyer. 

A quick snap of the Tate Modern, always a favourite of mine, not only for the work, but for the Sympathetic renovation of one of London's largest stations along the Thames. 

We all had a superb day, other sites include, Libeskind's London Met Grad centre, Foster's Gherkin, Roger's Lloyd's Building and Somerset House. This is the first of what we hope will be many Dot.tours, look out for our next in the Summer, we are thinking Manchester, but who knows, will get feedback on this one and take it from there. 

Thanks to all that came along, beautiful weather, brilliant architecture, and plenty of beer and banter - what a weekend!