“Ideas in architecture are often compromised by clients, contractors and gravity,” gallery co-founders Phillip Denny, Clara Syme, and Owen Nichols explain. “The four participants’ representational practices don’t necessarily have budgets, clients or explicit use-values.” Thus, the importance of unbuilt or not-for-construction work lies in its freedom from such constraints, whether the result is physically buildable or not.
The show also underscores an oft-overlooked truth: that the practice of architecture is more than the shiny renderings and the structures that follow them. It is an exercise in creativity and experimental problem-solving. The act of ideation is a radical venture, and putting it to paper where its concept can be displayed, recorded, and archived helps to advance the profession in thought as well as in form.
The exhibition is on view June 3rd — July 9th, 2021.