{"id":1168202,"date":"2026-08-25T08:17:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T08:17:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1168202\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T08:17:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T08:17:27","slug":"ushida-findlay-the-seriousness-of-maverick-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1168202\/","title":{"rendered":"Ushida Findlay: The seriousness of maverick practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a lot of architecture in V&A Dundee this summer: models, material fragments and films in the exhibition Maggie\u2019s: Architecture that Cares<\/a>; set designs, sites and bodies in Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show<\/a>; crip critique, invention and spatial activism in Design and Disability<\/a> (transferred from V&A South Kensington); and material culture in the Scottish Design Galleries. And, with the 2025 Doolan Prize film playing through the open door of the adjacent lecture theatre, there\u2019s also an exhibition of the work of the Scottish-Japanese Ushida Findlay Partnership.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kathryn Findlay (1953-2014) is one of three women architects included in The New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women<\/a> (published 2019). She is \u2018seen\u2019 in architectural history: the first female architect elected as a Royal Scottish Academician (2007); and awarded the Jane Drew Prize<\/a> (2014). In the last five years of her life, interviews, tributes and obituaries traced her \u2018huge and global\u2019 reputation, \u2018total life\u2019 and \u2018exceptional creative power\u2019. Fionn Stevenson in Architectural Research Quarterly highlighted the practice\u2019s \u2018three remarkable houses that transformed architectural thinking\u2019 and how its work was \u2018viewed as an alchemical fusion of Findlay\u2019s wild imagination and Ushida\u2019s technological prowess\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Montage of 35mm slides of Ushida Findlay\u2019s work<\/p>\n

Source: Grant Anderson<\/p>\n

Ushida Findlay: Unbroken Spaces comprises samplings of this creative practice. A range of visual material \u2013 35mm slides, ink drawings, digitised video, pamphlets, sketchbooks, interview footage, text panels \u2013 is displayed in the modest V&A Designer in Residence Studio. Much of this content has already appeared in the public domain. There is only tantalising evidence of the messiness and technicalities of construction, the hard \u2018enabling\u2019 work that, Findlay notes, is not seen; how the practice\u2019s \u2018slimy drawings\u2019 were made; or in what work configurations the partnership played out. There are just glimpses of the vivacity and constructional adventures that generated the Open House: Art and Life event at Truss Wall House in Tokyo (1993) or the 1:1 ecological provocation of 1009 Footpath installation at the 1996 Adelaide Festival.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Twelve years after Findlay\u2019s death, the exhibition is a convergence of documents moving from family to institutional care. The Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) is beginning to reflect on its own history and position after 200 years. The acquisition of the Ushida Findlay archive settles their transnational, collaborative work into the Scottish artistic establishment, if far from their built works.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Exhibits at Ushida Findlay: Unbroken Spaces<\/p>\n

Source: Grant Anderson<\/p>\n

The exhibition\u2019s sketched chronological organisation highlights Findlay\u2019s early biography, the commission for Homes for the Future, Glasgow in 1999, later UK projects and her influence on the V&A Dundee design team\u2019s selection while being a professor in the city. I didn\u2019t, however, spot any material on the Maggie\u2019s Cancer Care Centre planned for Wishaw. As a homecoming, this Scottish skew is of interest to a local audience. By presenting the work as that of a specific RSA academician, it also potentially diminishes the importance of collaboration in her work, as well as her working life as it was structured through inventive iterations of architectural practice.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Exhibits at Ushida Findlay: Unbroken Spaces<\/p>\n

Source: Grant Anderson<\/p>\n

In a photocopied bi-lingual catalogue dated 8 May 1993 from the aforementioned event at Truss Wall House, Findlay writes of \u2018finding the feeling of the house\u2019: of her music composition as a \u2018double-reeded relationship\u2019 for shakuhachi (japanese flute) and saxophone, an interplay between western music based on heart-beat and eastern music\u2019s determination by breath, with a nearby trainline as \u2018a third collaborator\u2019. Ushida Findlay\u2019s architecture can be read as sculpted form but also as experiential, amplified through movement and sound. Ushida and Findlay\u2019s fascinating 40-minute film Truss Wall House Inside: Out and its commentary make a visit worthwhile, although it deserves a much larger screen and access to audio.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Collage of images of the practice\u2019s Truss Wall House<\/p>\n

Source: Grant Anderson<\/p>\n

This exhibition registers the institution of an archive. It is a critical shift from private memorabilia to public view, of decisions around what is amplified or silenced and who decides this. An archive can only ever be a partial legacy of an adventurous, relational life. The Kathryn Findlay Future Fund at Scene and Heard, a theatre artist mentoring charity in London, is now being used in concrete ways for their own projects of art and life. Ushida Findlay\u2019s portfolio can be placed within an elite definition of architectural culture and discourse, reputational capital built through private clients, competition entries and publication. Yet it is coursed with a maverick, grounded intelligence that provides a positive touchstone for a multiplicitous approach to architecture, driven by experiential imagination.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Exhibits at Ushida Findlay: Unbroken Spaces<\/p>\n

Source: Grant Anderson<\/p>\n

Ushida Findlay: Unbroken Spaces<\/a>, part of the RSA\u2019s 200th anniversary celebrations, is free to visit at the V&A Dundee\u2019s Designer in Residence Studio until 28 August 2026\u00a0<\/p>\n

Suzanne Ewing is professor of architectural criticism at the Edinburgh School of Architecture<\/p>\n

In the AJ Buildings Library<\/p>\n


\n \"Orbit,<\/a><\/p>\n


\n \"Poolhouse<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is a lot of architecture in V&A Dundee this summer: models, material fragments and films in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1168203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,4022,77,6968,317030,16,15,317031,317032],"class_list":["post-1168202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-exhibition","tag-kathryn-findlay","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-ushida-findlay","tag-va-dundee"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117155165706578609","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1168202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1168202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1168202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1168203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1168202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1168202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1168202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}