RA – Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined

25 January – 6 April 2014

In January 2014, Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined will see the Main Galleries of the Royal Academy of Arts transformed by seven architectural practices from around the world. The RA has commissioned the architects to create site-specific installations; the shared brief is to explore the essential elements of architecture. Instead of representations of buildings in the form of models, plans or photographs, the RA is re-defining the traditional architectural exhibition to immerse visitors in a multi-sensory experience. Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined considers architecture from the angle of the human encounter: how vision, touch, sound and memory play a role in our perceptions of space, proportion, materials and light.

The architects include well-known and emerging practices and hail from diverse geographical and cultural backgrounds. Collaborating across the globe on this project are: Grafton Architects (Ireland); Diébédo Francis Kéré (Germany/Burkina Faso); Kengo Kuma (Japan); Li Xiaodong (China); Pezo von Ellrichshausen (Chile); Eduardo Souto de Moura and Álvaro Siza (Portugal). The architects have been carefully selected to form a group whose distinct approaches share similarities and offer contrasts. They all create work that is particularly responsive to people and place. They share an understanding of the sensorial capacity of architecture and its materiality.

Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined has been organised by the Royal Academy of Arts. The exhibition has been curated by Kate Goodwin, Drue Heinz Curator of Architecture at the Royal Academy of Arts.

 

All Images © The Royal Academy of Arts 2014