About this episode
Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the architect Amanda Levete. She won the Stirling prize in 1998 for the Media Centre at Lord's Cricket Ground which she designed with then husband, the late Jan Kaplicky. Later this year the Victoria and Albert Museum in London will open her extension, featuring a new entrance, courtyard and gallery.
Brought up in Richmond, the oldest of three children, she showed her independent spirit early on, and left school at 16. She discovered architecture while on a Foundation year at art school and was offered a place at the Architectural Association, even though her portfolio didn't feature a single drawing of a building.
Since setting up her own practice in 2009, her creative endeavours have included the Museum of Art, Architecture & Technology (MAAT) in Lisbon, a retail and hotel complex in Bangkok, and the MPavilion Queen Victoria Gardens in Melbourne. In 2016 her practice won competitions to transform the Galleries Lafayette building in Paris and create a new mosque in Abu Dhabi. She has also designed furniture, stackable football pitches and set up a pop-up restaurant serving nothing but tinned fish.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
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