SANTA BARBARA, CA.-An exploration of emerging architectural thinking and practice in London will be on view at the Univeristy Art Musuem at UC Santa Barbara form November 1, 2007 through January 20, 2008. Gritty Brits: New London Architecture examines the works of six young, London-based architectural firms: Adjaye/Associates, Caruso St John Architects, FAT (Fashion Architecture Taste), Níall McLaughlin Architects, muf, and Sergison Bates architects. These practices operate in and about the city’s post-industrial East End and their work responds to the vibrant diversity of contemporary culture and urban life.

“We are delighted to be the sole West Coast venue for this timely exhibition,” notes Kathryn Kanjo, director of UAM. “The work draws its currency from the complementary relationship between London’s “gritty” reality and the architects’ celebration of that condition.”

This “new London” architecture manifests itself in areas that were previously neglected by developers and planners. Clients range from the well-to-do to the less privileged. Some projects are homes for celebrities and art collectors, others provide housing for low-income residents and recent immigrants.

“The collective result of the architects’ creations is that as new social groups and situations emerge, new juxtapositions and cultural layers manifest themselves within the city,” says Raymund Ryan, Carnegie Museum of Art curator of architecture and organizer of the exhibition. “These new architects allow the city and its architecture to inform one another, and their projects analyze and reinforce the urban experience through use of color, light, texture, and ornament.”

The awnings of market stalls inspired the vivid colors and striations of Adjaye/Associates’ Idea Store Whitechapel, where patrons from many racial and economic backgrounds participate in library activities and classes, use the Internet, and dine in the upper- level cafe.

Rethinking our concept of landscape, FAT proposes Custom Car Rococo, a contemporary park-and-ride in Regent’s Park, a vast urban park first constructed in 1810. Alongside some architecturally undistinguished high-rise towers in Tilbury, the architectural firm muf collaborated with teenage girls to organize a barren site near public housing for horseback riding and other community activities London’s canals now host a growing number of floating homes. Níall McLaughlin’s Houseboat uses environmental technologies for warmth and cooling and, unlike a traditional barge, is made of glass and reveals the lives of its inhabitants. The iridescent and striped facades of McLaughlin’s housing at Silvertownreinterpret aspects of that postindustrial terrain.

Many of the projects in the exhibition are found in Bethnal Green and Hoxton Square, neighborhoods closely associated with the Young British Artists (YBAs). Caruso St John Architects worked with the artist Thomas Demand and are now preparing designs with Damien Hirst for a private museum in Lambeth.