Creation From Catastrophe – How Architecture Rebuilds Communities, The Architecture Gallery, RIBA, 66 Portland Place, London W1, until 24^th April 2016

Sir Christopher Wren’s Plan for Rebuilding the City of London after the Great Fire of 1666
(c) RIBA Collections

This is an engaging study of how architects and designers have looked at bringing a new harmony and way forward after catastrophic disasters, natural or man-made, to existing cities and communities over the centuries.  Appropriately it starts with the plans to rebuild London after the Great Fire of 1666 and then via 18^th century Lisbon and 19^th century Chicago to the 20^th and 21^st centuries in Japan, Macedonia, Chile, Pakistan, Nigeria, Nepal and the USA.

Post Chicago fire, high rise – Reliance Building by Atwood, Burnham & Co, North State Street, Chicago 1890-95
(c) RIBA Collections

What is remarkable is how the communities that survive such catastrophes come together to build a new and hopefully more stable future life.

Design for water communities, Lagos, Nigeria by NLÉ
(c) NLÉ

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