Siza Vieira e Souto de Moura at the Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts invited architects from different nationalities to create site-specific installations for the exhibition "Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined", which will transform the academy main galleries in London.

Seven emerging and internationally recognized architects from various geographical and cultural origins were carefully selected to work in this exhibition, whose approaches allow creating similarities and contrasts, working particularly sensitive to people and places by sharing an understanding of the sensory capabilities of the architecture and their materiality.

Besides the Portuguese Álvaro Siza Vieira and Eduardo Souto de Moura, both Pritzker Prize winners, were also invited:  Kengo Kuma, from Japan; Grafton Architects, from Ireland; Li Xiaodong, from China, Pezo von Ellrichshausen, from Chile; and Diébédo Francis Kéré, un architect from Burkina Faso based in Germany.

Álvaro Siza Vieira and Eduardo Souto de Moura - Photo © Miguel Oliveira

Each architect was commissioned to create site-specific installations, exploring the essential elements of architecture through spatial and sensory interventions exploring the emotive forces of architecture inside the museum.

Instead of representations of buildings in the form of models, plans or photographs, the Royal Academy is re-defining the traditional architectural exhibition to immerse visitors in a multi-sensory experience, considering architecture from the angle of the human encounter: how vision, touch, sound and memory play a role in our perceptions of space, proportion, materials and light.

The exhibition "Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined" will be open to the public at the Royal Academy of Arts, in London, from January 25 to April 6, 2014.

Find out more at http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/sensingspaces/