Slimy curtains made of seaweed and pig intestines hang from the ceiling in the Royal Academy’s central dome, resembling the slippery skins shed by some reptilian creatures. Above a busy stage where workbenches are littered with half-finished models and material samples, they hang next to a teetering prototype of a structural stone tower and a plaster mold used in the production of toilets. A brightly painted model of a phoenix-shaped Ghanaian coffin stands on a pedestal made of rubble, while pastel-colored tiles made of crushed seashells hang on a nearby wall.
This is the architecture room of the RA Summer Exhibition, but it is not as we know it. The usual selection of small model buildings and obscure drawings, often glossed over by bemused members of the visiting public, have been transformed this year into a fascinating museum of construction. This is the radical vision of young Turner Prize-winning architecture collective Assemble, who joined the hallowed ranks of the Royal Academicians in 2022, breathing new life into the way their rarefied disciplines are exhibited there.
“Sometimes attending architectural exhibitions can be quite difficult,” says Maria Lisogorskaya, a founding member of Assemble. “We wanted to celebrate the messy parts of architecture and showcase the people involved in the creation of buildings who are not traditionally considered architects.”
The result is an extraordinarily diverse collection of material experiments and new techniques that delight in the tactile, crafted qualities of architecture and offer a behind-the-scenes window into how things are made. There are beautiful mosaic panels produced by volunteers at the Hackney Mosaic Project in London, dazzling neon nylon chairs woven by Samuel Obusi Adjei at the Nubuke Foundation in Accra, and lots of little things you’ll want to pick up and caress. In a world where buildings are increasingly assemblages of specific components identified from catalogues, Assemble offers an alternative universe of things moulded, cast, carved, thatched, compressed and fermented.
The stakes are high: This year, the architecture occupies two rooms, including the central domed space, for the first time, paying much more attention to the subject than usual. Behind the rotunda, the Sixth Gallery was designed as a kind of background industrial space, on which ready-to-use metal shelving systems and models, machines and antiques were displayed as if in an exhibition. warehouse.
In a nod to sustainability, elements from previous exhibition Entwined Histories were also reused, including some large mirrors and a low table by JA Projects; The walls were left in the dark burgundy color that had already been painted. It’s a gorgeous backdrop for some heavy-industrial pieces, including a massive agricultural contraption for compacting clay bricks by Feilden Clegg Bradley and a fearsome army of hydraulic “pliers” by artist James Capper who use them to gnaw and squeak. in his sculptures. One hopes its mighty steel jaws might turn to crush the model of 1 Under Shaft, Eric Parry’s latest blown-up office tower for the City of London; a greedy hulk who clearly feels out of place here.
The rotunda, meanwhile, is designed more like a working studio space, with paint samples painted on the walls and objects displayed on workbenches, with no museum pedestals in sight. Furniture pieces and other structural elements submitted by artists and makers are cleverly placed as exhibition structures, such as a shelf made of woven reeds by Felicity Irons and Granby Workshop’s recycled terrazzo fireplace, upon which other exhibits are placed homelike. The trinkets add a special feel to everything. A shiny Murano glass gourd by Yinka Ilori shines on a ceramic coffee table by Matthew Raw, while a roll of hand-printed wallpaper by Victoria Browne hangs next to the carved wooden block that made it.
There is real skill and elegance on display here, celebrating the expert hands that realized the architects’ visions. A perfectly scale model of a wooden staircase made by students at Stratford Building Crafts College sits on the workbench where it was built by apprentice carpenters. Next to it are a pair of bowls made using unexpected materials by decorative plaster experts Steven and Ffion Blench. One of these is made from waste from a plaster quarry, while the other uses 18th-century soot and lime collected during repairs to the vaulted ceiling of General Register House in Edinburgh. Both appear to be precious minerals that transform garbage into treasure in the process of geological alchemy.
The magical possibilities of the stone are also evident throughout. Webb Yates Engineers and Stonemasonry Company (who showcased a boldly braced stone beam here in 2022) return with their latest unexpected venture into the structural potentials of rock. This time, they show how stone can be used instead of steel in space-frame structures, by bolting thin rods of pink Portuguese marble together to form a delicate tower. The result looks like it could be a radio mast from the Flintstones.
“This type of structure could replace any truss,” says engineer Steve Webb, who suggests we might one day see long-span roofs, bridges and tower cranes made of stone; This means 75% less carbon in the production process. “Imagine the Eden Center biomes or Stansted airport or even the Australian Stadium, made of inherently fireproof, durable and low-carbon stone rods.”
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Next to it stands a stone tower of a very different kind, by Palestinian architect AAU Anastas. It is a section of a larger stone pillar made from limestone fragments salvaged from a demolished 1950s education ministry building in Bethlehem, stacked between smooth stone nodes and carved to fit snugly between the salvaged rocks. There’s a touching involvement from the young duo, who run a cultural center in Bethlehem in the shadow of Israel’s concrete security barrier. As Gaza is brutally destroyed, their poetic works offer a glimmer of hope for how a powerful architecture of memory might one day emerge from the rubble.