Four artists respond to narratives embedded in the walls of RIBA’s 66 Portland Place
‘It’s one of the most racist things I’ve seen in my life, which is saying a lot,’ says artist Thandi Loewenson of the RIBA’s Jarvis Mural, which in 1934 depicted the RIBA Council surrounded by buildings associated with Britain’s imperial rule, and by indigenous peoples of the empire.
The architectural designer and researcher is one of four artists commissioned for Raise the Roof: Building for Change, a new RIBA exhibition addressing ‘attitudes embedded in the fabric’ of the institute’s London headquarters at 66 Portland Place.
Confronting these deeply uncomfortable aspects feels like an important initiative ahead of the institute’s forthcoming House of Architecture project to transform the 90-year old HQ. In order to look forward to a more inclusive profession, it needs to come to terms with its past. And this means, says curator Margaret Cubbage, ‘unpacking’ themes of race, gender and imperialism and engaging with some of the building’s most contentious features. The exhibition puts this in a wider context, acknowledging architecture’s role ‘as a physical manifestation of power, control and cultural dominance’, and setting out the need for decolonising.
There’s certainly plenty of material to work with at George Grey Wornum’s 1934 building, the result of an ‘empire-wide’ design competition. While the whole building is something of a celebration to the making of the imperial world, says Cubbage, the artists in the Raise the Roof commissions were invited to respond to two aspects of its interior in particular – the Jarvis Mural and the Dominion Screen.
Three of the artists decided to tackle the mural. I can’t be the only repeat visitor to the RIBA not to have previously even noticed what was depicted in this somewhat murky mural at the back of the Jarvis Hall, nor to have studied the Dominion carved screen in the building’s Florence Hall. But once seen, these can’t be forgotten.
Painted by Edward Bainbridge Copnall, the mural is a curious and highly problematic piece mounted on a screen that can be lowered out of view to extend capacity in the lecture hall. The artist has placed the all-white, all-male RIBA council at the centre of the design, supplemented by the buildings of UK architectural institutions and of colonial power in its empire, designed by architects including Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker. Marginalised at the periphery are depictions of indigenous peoples of these lands as ‘outsiders in huddled poses, suggesting timidity and compliance’, according to the existing contextualising text.
Loewenson’s Blacklight piece focuses on what she feels was missing from the Jarvis Mural – references to the sites of mineral extraction and exportation of labour that underpinned the world it depicted. Working with and on graphite – assisted by Zhongshan Zou – she has overlayed the mural’s composition with a 1921 drawing of the Broken Hill Mine in Kabwe, Zambia, a toxic site of lead and zinc extraction. In doing so, she has erased the mural’s problematic peripheral figures, while introducing new figures involved in the mining today. Traces of the original scene are visible: ‘The ghosts of buildings glow through the image, now contextualised by slag heaps and accompanied by the much less glamorous infrastructure of extraction that supported their construction,’ says the artist.
Arinjoy Sen’s response to the Jarvis Mural, The Carnival of Portland Place, deals with the troubling themes in a more colourful way. His work re-imagines the RIBA as a site of reconstruction and celebration. Indigenous figures, rather than being marginalised, are given centre stage in a procession of brightly dressed skilled craftspeople bearing symbols of their crafts. The central carnival is flanked by references to West African timber and teak, interwoven with chains and weights – perhaps representative of the role they played tethering ‘the prejudices and power dynamics’ depicted in the existing mural.
Esi Eshun’s 15 minute video explores the context of some of the buildings featured in the Jarvis Mural and the power structures they supported. These include the work of Lutyens, and in particular Baker, who worked in South Africa for many years and had a close association with Cecil Rhodes.
Giles Tettey Nartey’s Assembly is a nestling cluster of 17 stools created from Quebec Pine, the same material as used for the Dominion decorative screen, which it responds to. Made by sculptor Denis Dunlop, the screen consists of 20 carvings depicting animals, people and industries of the empire including diamond mining and pine export. We learn that it was originally intended to be celebratory, but nowadays its primitivist depictions and underlying themes of extraction and exploitation feel very problematic.
Assembly feels like a generous response, inviting people to gather and interact with the piece, encouraging discourse not only on its depictions but also, says the artist, on what it means to be an architect. The piece also holds space for a possible new carving in the future.
As well as presenting these commissions, the exhibition explores the context of colonialism and architecture’s place in it, and the role that decolonising can play in conceiving ‘more equitable futures’. Within the gallery, two spaces inspired by the toguna shelters of traditional Malian architecture provide public spaces for reflection.
RIBA President Muyiwa Oki described the exhibition as a significant undertaking and also just the first step towards encouraging awareness, reflection and debate. It will be fascinating to see where this important discourse leads.
Raise the Roof: Building for Change, until 22 September, RIBA Architecture Gallery, 66 Portland Place, London W1B 1NR