BBC Radio on the Emerging Design Cities: Bangalore & Beijing featured

Design Cities from the BRIC Nations on the BBC Radio: Bangalore & Beijing featured
Prof M P Ranjan Papers

Image: The Design Museum lecture hall before the event. Prof Ranjan and Denis Cherdantsev in the foreground with Ou Ning from China and George Pegasiou of the British Council, London in the background of classic Eames wire chairs that were set up for the audience.

The morning session of the Design Cities Debate started with a visit to Bush House in London for a scheduled interview for BBC Radio along with Deyan Sudjik, Director of the Design Museum. Mark Coles of the BBC conducted the interview and set the tone for the discussion on the Design Cities Debate that had been set up by the exhibition at the Design Museum in London later in the day on 15th December 2008.

The full interview as it was broadcast on Tuesday, 16th December 2008 can be listened to at this link here (BBC interview link page) and those who wish can download the interview as a QuickTime file from this BBC interview download link here. Andrea Kidd was the producer at the BBC who had spoken to me in the preliminary tele-conversation that explored the scope of the discussions at the final interview and Mark Coles sat with the visitors in the small recording studio around a round table while Andrea could be seen through the glass wall while she managed the recording console on the other side.

This experience brought back fond memories from a far away past in my childhood in Madras since I used to then listen to the BBC World Service on shortwave radio every night before bedtime and on the hour (GMT) we heard the chimes of the Big Ben followed by the announcement “… broadcast from Bush House, London”, and here I was at Bush House London to attend the Design Cities interview with Deyan Sudjik of the Design Museum and Ou Ning from Beijing. The BBC interview was broadcast on the evening of Tuesday, 16th December 2008 and it is available online from the Arts and Culture module called the Strand on Tuesday, and the broadcast can be downloaded or listened to at this link below:
The Strand – Tuesday page Go to archives and look up the 16th December , Tuesday page to listen to the broadcast.

Listen to the broadcast here (26 minutes for the full three part module or the last third for the Design Cities discussion.)

The Design & Architecture team at the British Council had proposed this event to the Design Museum and it was through the support from the British Council in London and India that I managed to travel to London to participate in this exciting event.

Prof M P Ranjan Papers