muf architecture/art. Altab Ali Park, 2011

Talk

Liza Fior: Not a clean slate

Bodies of Thought

Monday 8 April 2019 6.30 - 8pm

The Benjamin West Lecture Theatre, Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts

£15, £9

This event has been postponed – more information coming soon.

A lecture by Liza Fior, founding partner of muf architecture/art, where she discusses their unique approach to research and how it can transform the architectural brief and the relationship with the client.

muf architecture/art was established in the mid '90's as a new type of practice that would blur the ‘fuzzy edges’ between buildings and city, but also architecture, art, and the structures of society. Founded by Liza Fior along with co-founders Juliet Bidgood, Katherine Clarke and Kath Shonfield, muf was – and is – known for having an irreverent, and deeply serious approach to challenging ideas about the role of design in the public realm; and pioneered what we now describe as ‘socially-engaged practice’ long before the term became common parlance.

For the Bodies of Thought series, which looks at the relationship between architects and ideas, Fior will suggest that in ‘spatial practice’ there can be no separation between theory and practice: ‘The project is the research,’ says Fior. The lecture will be followed by a discussion on the role of the architect in the public realm, and will give a unique insight into one of the most influential and pioneering British practices.

Liza Fior is a lecturer at the MA Architecture: Cities and Innovation at UAL's Central St Martins and was previously a Visiting Professor at Yale School of Architecture. As part of muf, she was awarded the 2008 European Prize for Public Space for the new town square for Barking. She is the co-author of This is What We Do: A muf manual (Batsford Ltd, 2001) and Design Advocate for the London Mayor.

£15, £9

This event has been postponed – more information coming soon.

‘Bodies of Thought’ lecture series

At the start of the Modern era, Sir John Soane began his first lecture as RA Professor of Architecture by restating the ‘law’ of the RA:

"The student must read much and reflect more. The mind of the student should be impressed with the absolute necessity of close and unremitted attention, of deep and indefatigable research."

In this spirit, the Bodies of Thought lecture series will invite architects to explain how their work has developed alongside a wider body of ideas that has shaped their thinking and practice.

This series is organised in partnership with The London School of Architecture and curated by Vicky Richardson.