Crowd at the Dirt exhibition, Wellcome Trust

Exhibition banner, Euston Road, Wellcome Trust

Visitors looking at RIBA material at the Dirt exhibition

Collections that travel – a lot
Items from the collections of the RIBA British Architectural Library get to travel. They can be found on display at other institutions across the United Kingdom and beyond, either as temporary loans or as part of travelling exhibitions.

Currently books and drawings by 16th-century Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio are on a tour of the United States; in the centre of Liverpool prints of Eric de Maré’s architectural photographs are being installed in a public exhibition space; and less than a mile away from RIBA headquarters  is the Wellcome Trust’s latest exhibition exploring the long and complex relationship between humans and dirt.

Dirt exhibition, Wellcome Trust
As well as drawing from the Wellcome’s own collections, other institutions contributed  items to ‘Dirt: The filthy reality of everyday life’; the RIBA has lent material on the pioneering work carried out in Britain during the 1930s in providing comprehensive and modern healthcare provision. Six photographs and three drawings highlight the contribution the Pioneer Health Centre in Peckham and the Finsbury Health Centre made in advancing public health.

This exhibition has a global outlook; one gallery tells the story of the impact of dirt on the ‘untouchables’ of India, while another covers the work to transform part of Staten Island from the world’s largest landfill into a new park that will be three times bigger than Central Park.

The exhibition is open until 31 August 2011, admission is free.

Some of the items from the RIBA on show at the Wellcome Trust:

Pioneer Health Centre, Peckham, London, 1935. Copyright: Dell & Wainwright / RIBA Library Photographs Collection

Finsbury Health Centre, London, 1938. Photographed by John Maltby. Copyright: RIBA Library Photographs Collection

Explanatory drawing by Tecton for Finsbury Health Centre, 1938. Copyright: RIBA Library Drawings and Archives Collections

About Wilson Yau

I work for the British Architectural Library at the RIBA as part of a team to share news, images and information online about the activities of the Library and the fascinating items we have in our architectural collections – it contains over four million items, so there's plenty to see! If you’re curious about what we do at the Library and with the collections, or want to discover the latest about our education programmes, public events and exhibitions at the RIBA, please visit www.architecture.com

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