![]() ![]() The perfumed room is the work of Tokyo’s Kengo Kuma. The maze is by Li Xiaodong, a Chinese architect, whose exquisite timber and glass library veiled in a screen of the sticks local villagers collect for firewood in and around Huairou, some two hours drive from Beijing, has drawn visitors around the world since it was opened in 2011. Their own house and studio overlooking the rooftops of Concepcion resembles a tower, a miniature castle of their own. Since then, they have designed powerful, elemental concrete houses, like the Poli House overlooking the sea on the Coliumo Peninsula that is at once as ancient as the hills in the way it feels and sits in the landscape and as modern as you want it to be. The timber castle is by Mauricio Pezo and Sofia Von Ellrichhausen who founded their studio in Concepcion, Chile, in 2002. Goodwin has sought her architects widely. So there are no models of buildings, no photographs or drawings, but real spaces created for these big galleries.” “It’s about visitors experiencing real spaces rather than staring at iconic images of famous buildings. “So, Sensing Spaces is about how architecture confronts us and communicates with us on an emotional and psychological as well as visual and intellectual level”, says Goodwin, who studied architecture in her native Australia and has been with the RA since 2003. ![]() We need to experience architecture by sensing its spaces, listening to it, touching it and even sitting quietly inside buildings with our eyes closed, but our minds’ eyes wide open. ![]() Goodwin’s show is an attempt to break fresh ground, especially for younger audiences who have been brought up to experience architecture increasingly through images seen on computer screens, making instant judgements based first and foremost on looks.Īs this is like judging a person’s qualities on the way they look – a supermodel, celebrity singer or actor must de facto be somehow superior to anyone of average height, weight and looks − Goodwin’s own instinct has surely been right. The exhibition is designed by a small number of architects from around the world who share a common interest in trying to shape buildings that appeal to all our senses, and not just to the informed eye. These curious structures are highlights from Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined, an exhibition curated by the Royal Academy of Arts’ Kate Goodwin in the London institution’s main galleries. What seems to be a Moorish-African arch from some exotic rainforest grotto prickled, oddly, with children’s drinking straws… A darkened and perfumed Japanese room strewn with a net-like structure fabricated from filigree bamboo. A Chinese maze formed by hazel twig walls, leading to dead ends and a mysterious enclosed room along paths made of white light masquerading as snow. A foreshortened Spanish-American timber castle, its spiral stairs winding up to stretches of gilded cornicing beneath a 19th Century iron and glass roof. ![]()
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