Review: Mavericks: Breaking the Mould of British Architecture

Abstract

Mavericks: Breaking the Mould of British Architecture Royal Academy of Arts, London 26 January–20 April 2016 In 1936, the leading British journal Architectural Review reconsidered its medium and its message by punching holes out of one of its thick interior sheets, displaying round sections of an image on the following page, to readers’ delight. Playfully revealing and concealing, and connecting word, image, and magazine design for a 1930s audience, these well-placed holes reminded readers that even a robust and established critical voice could have a little fun. Mavericks: Breaking the Mould of British Architecture , at the Royal Academy, was also shaped by the spirited circle. The cover of its catalogue used the same circular trick as the 1930s AR issue. It was, too, an exhibition based on revealing and concealing, and it played fast and loose not only with the academy's interior ground floor Architecture Space and cafe rooms but also with the idea of an exhibition itself. This was an exhibition without any exhibits, but it was no mere display either. Curated by Owen Hopkins, who is also the author of the accompanying yet arguably stand-alone book, Mavericks pulled together the career highlights of twelve architects across three hundred years of building and designing in Britain. Four were eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century classicists, and seven were from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; there was only one woman. That woman was …