RIBA’s summer exhibition presents a dual-screen film installation, weaving together moments of architectural joy and intimacy drawn from the professional archives of renowned photographer and filmmaker Jim Stephenson.
Commissioned by RIBA as a response to this year’s London Festival of Architecture theme, In Common, the installation offers a series of cinematic vignettes that subtly document the ways that people use architecture when left to their own devices. Featuring recent projects by Grafton Architects, Henley Halebrown, Carmody Groarke, Jamie Fobert Architects and others, the films engage at different scales to quietly disrupt the traditionally ‘neat’ visions of these perhaps already familiar buildings, as usually presented to the public.
The Architect Has Left The Building has been edited and sequenced with photographic artist Sofia Kathryn Smith, and features a spatial soundscape composed by long time collaborator Simon James, creating a unique textural and atmospheric cinematic experience in the Architecture Gallery. The work asks the audience to pause for a moment, and to imagine the stories behind the scenes unfolding in front of them, while immersing themselves in the vision of the filmmaker, a vision that allows the viewer to engage with a subtle visual connectivity that spans fifteen years of Stephenson’s career.
66 Portland Place, London usual opening times
Monday to Saturday: 10am to 5pm
Tuesday: 10am to 8pm
Sunday: Closed
Banner image: Windermere Jetty Museum - Carmody Groarke © Jim Stephenson