Forming futures
Architecture awards week closing party
Thursday 19 March 2020 6.30 - 10pm
Royal Academy of Arts, 6 Burlington Gardens
Free, booking required
Help us wrap up 2020 Architecture Awards week with this free evening of installations, film screenings, music and hear more from the four Royal Academy Dorfman Award finalists.
Due to the international travel restrictions as a result of the Coronavirus, speakers, award winners and finalists for the Royal Academy Architecture Awards are unable to travel to London. Architecture Awards Week events (with the exception of Boonserm Premthada’s workshop on 18 March) have therefore been postponed until further notice. Ticket holders will be notified when the events are rescheduled. If you have purchased a ticket and would prefer to obtain a refund, please contact us on 0207 300 8090 or tickets@royalacademy.org.uk
After the excitement of awards week, we are hosting an evening’s festivities celebrating some of the best architecture locally and around the world. We have invited the Royal Academy Dorfman Award finalists to present their work for the first hour in the lecture theatre after which we will open our Burlington Gardens campus after hours with architects, artists, musicians, students and teachers from around the UK filling the building with activities and installations all thinking about what the future of architecture might look like.
Arrive early to claim a free drink from the poster bar and explore the building to find the spaces of the Royal Academy transformed into sites for architectural experimentation. You will have the opportunity to play games, draw, build and dance.
Registration essential. First 100 guests will receive a free drink.
More programme highlights to be released shortly
Free, booking required
Clockwise from top left: Stone Matters AAU Anastas, Jericho, Palestine, 2017. © Mikaela Burstow; Black Tiger Primary School, BCKJ Architects, Mao County, China, 2010. Photo by Dong Mei; Mukkula Pavilion AOR Architects, Lahti Mukkula, Finland, 2018. AOR Architects; Tropical Box House, WHBC Architects, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2015. WHBC Architects.
Dorfman Award finalists in conversation
6.30-7.30pm
We kick of our closing party with a one hour conversation in the lecture theatre between the RA Dorfman Award finalists. This is the opportunity to hear about what the future of architecture might look like in countries as diverse as Palestine, Finland, China and Malaysia. The discussion will be chaired by Sevra Davis, Director of Architecture Design Fashion at the British Council, our International Partner for the Royal Academy Architecture Awards.
The People's Park - a Borderland Royal
7-9.30pm
London parks are some of the most cherished spaces in the city. In this installation by JA Projects, the Burlington Gardens front hall will be transformed into a space for telling the stories of Victoria Park. Literally dubbed the “People’s Park” it was gifted by The Crown to the people of East London. Burlington Gardens shares its architect, James Pennethorne, with Victoria Park and so the installation will hack the architecture of Burlington Gardens to fill it with stories of the people the park was gifted to. A kaleidoscopic transmission of local stories, sounds and music will provide spaces to explore, relax and celebrate.
© James Bromley
Our past is set in stone, but the future need not be
7-9.30pm
Join Doing Bits Studio inside an inflatable classroom by James Bromley to make your mark on drawings of our historical collection of busts. Bring a friend and draw a new face on an old silhouette. Designed to take the stress and stigma out of drawing come along and let your creativity flow in a flexible space that will transform the Clore Learning Centre.
Lego City
7-10pm
Many of the most famous designers and architects of the 20th and 21st centuries got started with building blocks. Frank Lloyd Wright's mother famously provided young Frank with Froebel blocks in the hopes that he would become an architect. At the Bauhaus, building blocks for children were carefully designed as tools for thinking about the spaces around them. Building blocks are still a fun way for designers and architects to let go of all the constraints of contemporary building and play with what might be possible.
In the spirit of unconstrained building - and Frank Lloyd Wright's mother - we are breaking out our Lego once again for this installation. Join in throughout the evening to make your mark on the skyline.
Il Balcone
8.30-8.45pm
In this striking installation and performance, Valeria Muteri explores what it means for everyday people to take a stand. Using the balcony as an in-between space where public meets private, she creates a stage for an encounter with the difficulties of mafia culture in her home of Sicily. Reading from a script she engages the audiences as active spectators, blurring the boundaries of what it means to participate in public action.
Jayden Ali and Neba Sere in front of Henry Singleton's The Royal Academicians in General Assembly (1795)
The Future is a Common History
7-10pm
The Royal Academy has changed a lot in its 252 year history. We were founded by a cohort that included two women but then took until 1936 to elect a third to the ranks of Royal Academicians. Our first female president was elected last year and artists and architects of colour are still under-represented.
This performance taking place throughout the evening in the Collections Gallery re-imagines the Henry Singleton painting The Royal Academicians in General Assembly from 1795. Here JA Projects with help from Black Females in Architecture and Dr Adesola Akinleye conjures up an alternate history - one that celebrates the full breadth of our contemporary society and advocates for an architecture that better reflects our cultural make-up.
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