The Royal Academy of Arts’ annual Summer Exhibition is the world's largest open submission exhibition providing "a unique platform for emerging and established artists to showcase their works to an international audience." From 12,000 total works of art, spanning a complete range of disciplines, 140 architectural works have been selected and hung by Royal Academician and Architect Eric Parry, after some early dialogue with former RIBA President Sir Richard MacCormac. Work featured this year includes a model by Thomas Heatherwick and prints by Louisa Hutton of Sauerbruch Hutton, alongside Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, Nicholas Grimshaw, Richard Rogers and Eva Jiřičná.
Focusing on the development of designs and exploration of ideas during the process of conceiving and designing buildings, Eric Parry has put "equal emphasis on incomplete or theoretical projects as well as those that are complete. "The Architecture Room is rich in its propositions for buildings and places. Nowhere else will you find the international juxtaposition of the work of students alongside great practitioners and it makes a fascinating survey. Three walls are hung with more intimate work at a lower register, whilst the fourth introduces film and architecture. Two plinths house models, one at the scale of the city the other at the scale of buildings."
In the past year the Royal Academy has elected a record-number of members, creating a new generation of Royal Academicians. To celebrate this renewal of the membership Thomas Heatherwick, among others, will have a room dedicated to his work.
The show will run between the 9th June and the 17th August 2014 at the Royal Academy of Arts at Burlington Arcade, London.
