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Feb 2014
28m 22s

Richard Rogers and Norman Foster; Simon ...

Bbc Radio 4
About this episode

With John Wilson.

Architects Richard Rogers and Norman Foster discuss their 50-year friendship in a rare interview together, and reveal which of each the other's buildings is their favourite, as the exhibition The Brits Who Built the Modern World opens at RIBA's new Architecture Gallery.

In 1982 Simon Parkes paid just £1 to buy the former Astoria cinema in Brixton, south London. He turned it into the Brixton Academy and, over the next 14 years, put on gigs by the likes of The Clash, Bob Dylan and U2. On the publication of his memoir Live At The Brixton Academy, Simon Parkes gives John Wilson a tour of the historic venue.

The US artist George Condo began his artistic career as an assistant to Andy Warhol but he has become renowned for his grotesque figures and portraits which feature misshapen limbs, asymmetrical eyes and terrifyingly toothy mouths, controversially notable in a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. More recently he has become widely known for a collaboration with Kanye West. Condo discusses his career and two new exhibitions of his work.

Producer: Ellie Bury.

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