The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition reveals 2018 architecture winner

If you have been to the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition, then you would have already had the chance to admire the sheer number, inventiveness and variety of this year’s entries (and if you haven't – just go). Curated by artist extraordinaire Grayson Perry RA, the show has been desrcibed as one of the most fun and colourful snapshots of modern art today, comprising a striking 1,300 or so handpicked artworks in an array of mediums – and the Architecture Room, which this year was especially curated by architect Piers Gough RA, also strongly reflects that.
From Níall McLaughlin to Ron Arad and Thomas Heatherwick, some of the best and brightest of Britain’s contemporary architecture scene are represented in the exhibits – as well as one of the field’s recent losses, the respected architect Will Alsop who passed away earlier in the year. Works span beautiful sketches, meticulous architectural drawings, paintings, sculpture and of course, plenty of architectural models – something that was especially encouraged by Gough, balancing last year’s Farshid Moussavi-curated show, which focused on drawings.
There’s tall buildings and tiny buildings, fantastical visions of the future and pragmatic responses to today’s pressing questions, involving housing, culture and heritage across the country; while young, dynamic practices, such as Bureau de Change, are also notably present in the displays.
As is traditional, apart from orchestrating this architectural celebration, the RA is giving out its annual awards for best in show, and for the Architecture Room this year the prize went to Matthew Bloomfield, a recent Part II University of Sheffield architecture school graduate who currently works at Allies & Morrison. Bloomfield will be presented with the £10,000-worth Turkish ceramics Grand Award for Architecture for an imaginative, well-balanced and beautifully made model of his project: ‘The Parliamentary Campus Of God’s Own Country’. The piece was praised by the judges as a wonderfully crafted piece that reflects a complex, futuristic vision of architecture and urban planning that doesn't use the traditional language of the genre, and an experimentation that touches upon issues such as infrastructure and landscaping for urban settings.
Further winners of the RA Summer Exhibition’s prizes include Mike Nelson RA, who won the prestigious Royal Academy of Arts Charles Wollaston Award for his entry, ‘Untitled’; and Sofia Mitsola and Jerome Ng, the joint winners of the coveted British Institution Awards for Students.
This year, the Summer Exhibition’s Architecture Room has been curated by architect and Royal Academician Piers Gough.
Displays range from drawings, paintings and sketches to architectural models of all shapes and sizes.
The open call for the show this year particularly encouraged architects to enter three-dimensional work.
INFORMATION
For more information visit the Royal Academy’s website
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).
-
Inside the Ourika Community Gardens, YSL Beauty’s Moroccan Eden
At the base of Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, YSL Beauty's gardens are tended by local women in a bid by the brand to give back to the country which so inspired its founder
-
Kris Van Assche after fashion: discover the designer’s new homeware collection for Serax
The ‘Josephine’ collection for Serax features vases and other glass vessels inspired by Van Assche’s grandmother’s home
-
It’s time for the return of the show-stopping table clock
A host of brands, from Piaget to Van Cleef & Arpels, are revisiting the table clock in spectacular style
-
The 2025 Obel Award is scooped not by an architect or building, but by a movement
HouseEurope! has won the 2025 Obel Award; the non-profit organisation has been advocating for ecological and social transformation in the built environment
-
At the Royal Academy summer show, architecture and art combine as never before
The Royal Academy summer show is about to open in London; we toured the iconic annual exhibition and spoke to its curator for architecture, Farshid Moussavi
-
This ingenious London office expansion was built in an on-site workshop
New Wave London and Thomas-McBrien Architects make a splash with this glulam extension built in the very studio it sought to transform. Here's how they did it
-
Once vacant, London's grand department stores are getting a new lease on life
Thanks to imaginative redevelopment, these historic landmarks are being reborn as residences, offices, gyms and restaurants. Here's what's behind the trend
-
Lego and Serpentine celebrate World Play Day with a new pavilion
Lego and Serpentine have just unveiled their Play Pavilion; a colourful new structure in Kensington Gardens in London and a gesture that celebrates World Play Day (11 June)
-
Inside Abbey Road's refresh: touring the legendary studio's new interior
Abbey Road gets an interior refresh by Threefold Architects, bringing the legendary London recording studio in tune with the 21st century
-
The Serpentine Pavilion 2025 is ready to visit, ‘an exhibition you can use’
The Serpentine Pavilion 2025 is ready for its public opening on 6 June; we toured the structure and spoke to its architect, Marina Tabassum
-
A meticulously crafted artist’s space in east London evokes the area’s long creative history
Maich Swift Architects’ artist’s space has radically reconfigured a Victorian terraced house, transforming it into a contemporary live/work interior