Inside the mind of the architect

摘要

The Royal Academy of Art's new Herzog de Meuron (HdM) exhibition tackles the perennial problem of how to display architecture in a gallery head-on. Rather than plumping for a retrospective-style, chronological canter through the Swiss practice's 45-year, 600-project career, this exhibition is refreshingly trying something different, with mixed results. There isn't the reassuring structure of a thorough overview of the practice's impressive oeuvre to hang onto, or even a timeline of key dates and works. Nor do we hear from practice founders Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron themselves (although there is a conversation with the former in the catalogue). The emphasis is rather more on the process and experience of architecture, with models and films in particular serving as the necessary 'substitutes' for the architecture itself. And don't be alarmed at the sight of visitors waving their phones around - they're just getting to grips with using Augmented Reality (AR) to conjure up additional imagery - a first for the RA.