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2 THURSDAY
APRIL 2009
Kenneth Powell 536
Rory McGrath 501
Powell and Moya
2pm / Blue Boar Marquee, Christ Church / £7.50
Powell and Moya were one of Britain’s most significant
postwar architectural practices, and in this
comprehensive and engaging book, their history
has been chronicled for the first time by the eminent
architectural author and critic Kenneth Powell.
Founded in 1946, the practice rapidly established a
reputation for an approach best described as ‘humane
modernism’. Structured by building type, this book
reveals the principles of design particular to Powell
and Moya and tells how they were at the forefront of
hospital design and succeeded in bringing modernism
to Oxford (including Christ Church) and Cambridge.
Sponsored by Purcell Miller Tritton
Graham Farmelo
interviewed by John Carey
The Strangest Man:
The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac,
Quantum Genius
538
2pm / Newman Rooms, St Aldates / £7.50
Paul Dirac was probably the greatest British scientist
since Newton. A pioneer of quantum mechanics,
regarded by many as an equal of Albert Einstein,
he was the youngest man to win the Nobel Prize
for Physics. He was a chronically shy and retiring
man whose childhood and later life was shadowed
by tragedy. Drawing on a previously undiscovered
archive of family papers in Florida, Graham Farmelo
celebrates Dirac’s massive scientific achievements
and also paints a moving portrait of this most remarkable
and flawed of men. Here Graham Farmelo talks to
Sunday Times Chief Critic John Carey.
Bearded Tit: A Love Story
with Feathers
2pm / Hall, Christ Church / £8.00
Bearded Tit is comedian Rory McGrath’s story of life
among birds - from a Cornish boyhood wandering
gorse-tipped cliffs listening to the song of the
yellowhammer with his imaginary girlfriend, to
quoting the Latin names of birds to give himself a
fighting chance of a future with JJ - the most beautiful
girl he had ever seen. Thoroughly educational,
occasionally lyrical and often highly amusing, the
result is a gag-ridden memoir that is both disarming
and often surprisingly moving.
Tim Skelton
& Gerald Gliddon
Lutyens and the Great War
507
4pm / Festival Room 1, Christ Church / £7.50
Although Sir Edwin Lutyens is commonly celebrated
for his large houses for wealthy clients, much of his
most poignant work was designed in connection with
the First World War and remains relatively unknown
today. In this intriguing talk, Tim Skelton and Gerald
Gliddon explore this under-explored side of one of
Britain’s greatest 20th-century architects, taking
us from the Cenotaph in Whitehall and the nation’s
largest war memorial – the Memorial to the Missing
of the Somme at Thiepval – to some of the fifty
memorials that he designed in cities, towns and
villages in Britain and abroad.
Sponsored by Purcell Miller Tritton
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