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What is radical today? 40 positions on architecture

#Exhibition
6 Sep - 7 Nov 2019
Opening event: 6 Sep 19.00
The Royal Academy of Arts, London, GB
The Architecture Studio, The Dorfman Senate Rooms, Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK

Céline Baumann, The Parliament of Plants, 2019. Based on The House of Commons, 1793-94, by Karl Anton Hickel. © Studio Céline Baumann


This free display brings together 40 radical visions on how architecture can respond to today’s rapidly changing world.

The 1960s and 1970s were tumultuous decades of political unsettlement and social upheaval. From the construction of the Berlin Wall and the French students’ riots of May 1968, to the Vietnam War and anti-nuclear protests, these years occupy a remarkable place in recent history. Radical ideas set out to unseat existing conventions and practices in various spheres of life, including architecture.

Over this period, a number of architecture practices and collectives emerged and challenged the visions established by modernist architects reclaiming, through their radical ideas, the transformative power of architecture to change lives, cities and thinking. Today it could be said we are living in a similarly turbulent period of global changes with environmental, political and social upheaval. This display in the Architecture Studio questions what today’s practitioners are responding to by inviting 40 emerging and established architects, artists and thinkers to present their visions of what is most radical in architecture today.

From legendary names involved fifty years ago in the radical movement, through collectives such as Archizoom and Archigram, to new and emerging practitioners, this display presents bespoke contributions by a number of international participants, all listed below.

Participants in the exhibition:

Aaron Betsky and Jan Sobotka 
Adam Nathaniel Furman 
Alberte Lauridsen, EDIT
Andrea Branzi
Anna Heringer
Ateliermob
Bernard Khoury
Céline Baumann
Counterspace
Denise Scott Brown
Dong-Ping Wong with Virgil Abloh
Francis Kéré
Gaetano Pesce
Giorgia Scognamiglio and Lorenzo Zandri, Unsent Postcard
Guillermo López, MAIO
Holly Lewis, We Made That
Ian Ritchie RA
Izaskun Chinchilla
Jack Self, REAL
Janette Kim, Urban Works Agency
Kate Macintosh
OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen
Liza Fior
Lucy McRae
Maria Smith, Interrobang
Mark Foster Gage
Matilde Cassani
Matthias Kohler, Gramazio Kohler Research
Nic Clear
Patrik Schumacher, Zaha Hadid Architects
Paul Allen and CJ Lim, Studio 8 Architects
Peter Cook RA
Phineas Harper
Public Works
Sam Jacob
Sevince Bayrak and Oral Goktas, SO?
Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman
Virginia San Fratello and Ronald Rael
Xu Tiantian, DnA Design and Architecture

More info about the event here.

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