The Big Architecture Family Day
Sunday 10 June 2018 11am - 4pm
Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly
Free, no booking required
Celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Royal Academy with a day of architecture activities for families exploring our new premises in Burlington Gardens.
Discover the RA’s newly expanded home and consider the ways in which the identity of the RA has changed over its 250 year history at this free full-day programme of activities for children and families.
Find out more about architect David Chipperfield’s redevelopment and how he has linked two buildings of differing architectural characters to create a campus that meets the needs of a contemporary arts institution.
We encourage adults and children to join our programme workshops, drawing tours and the ever-popular Lego architecture challenge, to have a closer look at the new architecture of the RA and to discover how architects and architecture affect the identity of a place.
The Big Architecture Family Day is part of the London Festival of Architecture and Open-City’s Archikids
Programme
11am - 3pm, Clore Learning Centre
Explore the Royal Academy, inside and out, and create a plaster cast of our iconic building from your own miniature architectural model, then decorate the façade with details such as columns, statues and flags. Learn about how an architect emphasises the individual character of a building while making it fit the surrounding area and consider how they work when the structure is already there and designed by someone else. Will you be the architect of a future city?
11am - 3pm, across Burlington House and Burlington Gardens (Meet in the front hall of Burlington House. Tours leave every hour, please arrive early to guarantee your place.)
Led by one of our trained artists, we invite you to explore this multi-layered historical building on one of our family drawing tours. You will be taken on a journey through the RA’s history and will learn more about the features that determine its character through drawing. Take a closer look at how the identity of the RA is expressed in our newly expanded campus in Burlington Gardens. Learn useful drawing tricks and practice your skills. All materials will be provided.
2 - 4pm, across Burlington Gardens
Watch three of the UK’s leading architectural practices battle it out to create the most innovative and imaginative 'identity' project. We invite the practices to consider London's identity and come up with proposals that are typical of the capital, exploring and expanding on its multifaceted nature. Join us and see how architects consider their surrounding built environment and forge a project's own distinct personality, all in Lego form. Find out more
Renzo Piano: The Art of Making Buildings
This September, we celebrate the unique vision of one of the greatest architects of our time. From the Pompidou Centre in Paris to The Shard in London, Renzo Piano Building Workshop has designed some of the world’s most recognisable contemporary buildings.
With an exhibition designed and curated in collaboration with Renzo Piano and his team, we invite you to encounter architecture that touches the human spirit.