By: Oliver Wainwright |
| Neuroscience | The Guardian
Based on a nerve cell, the architect’s posthumous addition to London’s Blizard laboratory complex is so lovable, you almost want to give it a cuddle
Thrusting its bristly bottom out into the road, a curious spiny creature has landed in the backstreets of Whitechapel, London. Standing like an intergalactic porcupine, covered with long glowing quills that sway gently in the breeze, it is a startling thing to encounter in this unremarkable corner of hospital buildings and curry houses.
This is the £2m Neuron Pod, one of the last posthumous works of architect Will Alsop, who proves that he is still eminently capable of making mischief from beyond the grave. The project marks the latest addition to Queen Mary University of London’s campus, an informal science learning space for the armies of schoolchildren who benefit from the teaching hospital’s lively education programme. It is a classroom, but not as we know it.
