Exploring 'The Japanese House'

A post shared by Emmeline Pidgen (@emmelinedraws) on Jun 21, 2017 at 9:29am PDT

After a very late night at the IPSE Freelancer of the Year awards on National Freelancers Day earlier this month, I made the most of my time in London with a Pidgen-sibling adventure, which ended up with an accidental Japanese architecture theme!

Firstly we walked over to the House of Illustration near my hotel, to check out the 'Anime Architecture: Backgrounds of Japan' exhibition, which featured some incredibly gorgeous original sketches and gouache paintings for the backgrounds of classic animes like Ghost in the Shell. I'd never actually been to the House of Illustration before, I've been meaning to for literally years but I could never quite place where it was or find the time to go until now. It's a cute little building, nestled in King's Cross between a fancy Waitrose and a trendy coffee shop or two (one with an unnecessarily snooty barista!). It's little, but packed full of really interesting shows and a real passion for illustration (obviously right up my street!). You can keep an eye on what's on at the house of illustration on their website!

A post shared by Emmeline Pidgen (@emmelinedraws) on Jun 9, 2017 at 1:30pm PDT

Next up, we popped on the tube down to the Barbican - well, actually, I say "next up" but first we grabbed a drink (from the rude barista coffee shop!) and literally twenty seconds after we left my brother tripped and the world was suddenly covered in coffee. SO, "next up" was actually getting a new coffee from somewhere a little friendlier, and then on to The Barbican's 'The Japanese House: Architecture and Life after 1945' show.

Okay, yeah "1945 architecture" might not sound great to everyone - but one look at the promo and it was completely sold to me. There's a giant bloomin' Japanese house built into the space, and a charcoal-decorated tea room, and old films projected in front of humongous bean bags where we could rest our mildly hung-over heads! Yes 👏 yes 👏 yes 👏.

The exhibition was full of really interesting history and insight into the reasoning behind the modern wave of minimalist design, framing, and open space the architects loved. There were really great tiny models of buildings, constructed with really graphic shapes. There were piles of books; tiny porcelain cats; orange trees; and a really amazing ladder-only-access tea house covered in charcoal! As I walked round I kept seeing such incredible angles and shapes, honestly there were so many Instagramable shots, and so many new ideas for illustration compositions.

It felt so good to actually be in the space, walking around the building, between each room and out into the main gallery - it's something kind of rare to find in a gallery space, which you'd so often think of as "you stand, you look". It was such a nice place to just hang out in and be in a bit of a different world for a while!

Again, this was my first time at The Barbican! I'm definitely going to go again, even whilst we were there there was a really awesome-looking sci-fi exhibition that I really wish I'd had time to go to (I feel like I'm their demographic right now!). The Japanese House is only on until June 25th, so if you're interested go for it! Here's to family exhibition adventures, a lack of sleep, and Japanese architecture!