16 June 2022 · By Rob Wilson

Source: David Parry/ Royal Academy of Arts

Source: David Parry/ Royal Academy of Arts

Source: David Parry/ Royal Academy of Arts

Source: David Parry/ Royal Academy of Arts

Source: David Parry/ Royal Academy of Arts

Source: David Parry/ Royal Academy of Arts

Source: David Parry/ Royal Academy of Arts

Source: David Parry/ Royal Academy of Arts

Jointly curated by Níall Mclaughlin and artist Rana Begum, the display mixes art with the architecture, seeking to show how the climate crisis is changing material practices

Given that an artist, Theaster Gates, designed this year’s Serpentine Pavilion – be it with the input of Adjaye Associates – the fact that Níall McLaughlin jointly curated this year’s architecture room at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition with artist Rana Begum might suggest that architects are no longer trusted to lead on installation and exhibition projects alone, needing a touch of artistic inspiration to sex things up.

In fact, Mclaughlin invited Begum to join him to curate this year’s display. ‘It felt quite lonely having to curate it on my own,’ he says. ‘We’re both new RAs and collaborating with Rana and getting an artist’s input seemed a great way to open it up to the rest of the exhibition. We wanted to change the sense of the architecture room as this roped-off area from the rest of the Summer Exhibition with these tables of tiny models.’

So how did co-curating go? ‘It was a really enjoyable process,’ says Begum. ‘I mean there were differences. I am more in the moment in making decisions about individual pieces, while I think Níall could see the end result much clearer.’

The overall theme of this year’s Summer Exhibition, set by the artist Alison Wilding­, is ‘Climate’ – a slightly woolly guideline for architectural submissions given most of architecture loosely relates to it. So to narrow the focus a bit, Begum and McLaughlin sent out a briefing document to possible exhibitors, asking for ‘work that shows how our material practices are being changed by the demands of the climate crisis’.

‘We wanted examples of positive action signalling hope given the fatalism it is all too easy to feel’, says McLaughlin.

The result is a display spread across two galleries, which for the first time mixes works from architects with those of artists. Unexpected juxtapositions result. A large Tracey Emin acrylic Like a Cloud of Blood (‘I loved the title’ says Begum) faces you on axis as you enter under a structural blade of reclaimed stone, Equanimity, designed by engineer Webb Yates, sourced from London building sites and hanging from a huge timber trestle: a comment on fatalism and hope perhaps?

Elsewhere there are clearer-cut curated echoes, often between drawing styles and mark-making such as Philip Springall’s drawing and collage Alzheimer’s and Architecture against the adjacent Fan Drawing by Emma Davis. ‘We wanted different exhibits to have conversations,’ says McLaughlin. The mix has undoubtedly brought more air, life and variety into the display compared with the often serried ranks of models of many previous years.

There will also no doubt be more visitors experiencing the architecture exhibits this year, given the first of the two curated galleries is the second you pass through on the main clockwise drag through the exhibition. It means all visitors will dive directly into architecture shortly after they arrive – or rather under it as the Webb Yates structural stone piece hovers above you as you enter the gallery, almost diving board-like in its slimness.

It’s one of several 1:1 architectural exhibits displayed through the two galleries, mixing things up in terms of scale by breaking the datum of the sea of model-high displays and usefully bringing into focus the actual business of working with materials and making architecture.

The other very prominent 1:1 structure is in the second gallery, where the space is dominated by Marina Tabassum’s Mobile Modular House, lifted up on stilts to deal with the ongoing effects of climate change and flooding experienced in her native Bangladesh.

‘Her work was one of the shared starting points for both of us,’ says Begum. The piece is a perfect illustration of the ‘practical and the visionary’ architecture that she and McLaughlin originally asked for in their briefing note. Nicely too, this was not transported thousands of miles but was constructed from materials found to hand in London, its structure adapted to use the thinner bamboos available from a garden centre.

Similarly the prominent Dung Power columns by Boonserm Premthada, constructed of dried elephant dung bricks and looking akin to roughened Brancusi sculptures, were fuelled by locally sourced pachyderm poo. The mould they were made in also on display.

Aside from these big pieces, there is the usual rich grounding of other works. There’s an intricately detailed Flores i Prats' model of its Théâtre des Variétés project in Brussels; a delicate Giacometti-like bronze model of The Primitive Hut by Hayatsu Architects and Tonkin Liu's laser-cut plywood relief drawing of Grosvenor Square. There's the chunkily textured ceramic model by AY Architects + Grymsdyke Farm Lothos: Living with the Desert; Anna Heringer's richly textured hanging textile piece Rivers of Bangladesh and an intriguing hairy coconut fibre-covered Resilient Monument by THISS – as well as the usual lovely Peter Barber pottery models and maquettes.

McLaughlin also points out two photographs of sci-fi-looking interiors – taken of the Joint European Torus project in Oxfordshire that is researching the harnessing of fusion energy – reminding us that saving the planet is not only about paring back, scrimping and saving on carbon; there is still valid hope in the power of technology to solve some of the issues we face.

For all the hope on display, it’s not exactly bright, at least in hue, given the almost universally greyish or dun-coloured architectural exhibits, which are shown up by the more colourful art pieces interspersed with them, including Begum’s own spray-painted net piece.

Architecture it seems is no longer allowed to exude optimism through colour – something that could not be said of probably my favourite exhibit in the show: the original competition model of the Centre Pompidou in Paris – part of a memorial display of Richard Roger’s work, which joins one also for Chris Wilkinson. The model is relatively small in size but exudes a full-throated positivity and energy, even 50 years on, that most of the exhibits here, for all their hope, cannot quite muster.

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2022 opens on Tuesday 21 June.

Tags Niall McLaughlin Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

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