Royal Academy Of Arts

With public space being eroded in our cities and the internet subject to near pervasive surveillance, our panel explore whether spaces of freedom still exist, and if so, where.

In this podcast, Reinier de Graaf, partner at OMA, reflects on architecture’s different roles in today’s globalized world.

Tony Fretton and Ellis Woodman discuss the powerful, yet often overlooked contribution of James Gowan to twentieth-century British architecture.

In this podcast, part of our ‘Architecture and Freedom’ season, newly elected Royal Academician, Farshid Moussavi, discusses architecture’s function as an agent in shaping everyday life.

When Liotard travelled to London, his reputation was at its summit. This podcast with curator William Hauptman examines Liotard’s astonishing portrait work while there, his impact on the London art scene and his connections with the Royal Academy between 1773 and 1774.

In this podcast, Tate conservator Rosie Freemantle and conservation curator Jo Crook discuss the development of the medium of pastel in the 18th century, the medium in which Jean-Etienne Liotard was an expert.

In this podcast, potter and writer Edmund de Waal and Scottish composer Martin Suckling discuss their recent collaboration, a piece of music played by Aurora Orchestra – and explore the meaning of the colour white across music, poetry and the visual arts.

In this podcast, our expert panel consider what architecture’s responsibilities should be to the public good and whether it is time for architects to adopt a new code of ethics.

In this podcast, two distinguished Royal Academicians discuss what it is to draw, and why the process is so important for their work.

In this podcast, curator MaryAnne Stevens gives an introduction to the work of the artist Jean-Etienne Liotard. Travelling across Europe to Constantinople, patronised by rulers, aristocrats and the professional middle class, Liotard was internationally acclaimed for his mastery of pastel and his unflinching observation of reality, which he brought to his portraits, genre scenes and exceptional trompe l’oeil compositions.

In this podcast, art historian Professor Craig Clunas looks at the cultural role of materials in the art of Ai Weiwei.

Architect and theorist, Patrik Schumacher, considers the various parameters for architectural practice today, in the second lecture of our ‘Architecture and Freedom’ season.

In this podcast, architect Niall McLaughlin and landscape architect Kim Wilkie discuss the history of the world and everything in between, as part of our ‘Dialogues’ series.

In this podcast, curator Philip Tinari and architects Daniel Rosbottom and Simon Hartmann explore Ai Weiwei’s wide-ranging and lesser known Architectural practice.

In the first lecture in our ‘Architecture and Freedom’ season, German architect, Jürgen Mayer H discusses how architecture can facilitate social interactivity.

In partnership with Pin Drop, the RA hosted an exceptional evening of fiction and storytelling during Ai Weiwei’s landmark exhibition with the highly acclaimed and award-winning author, Will Self.

This extract from the audioguide for the RA's blockbuster exhibition of the work of Ai Weiwei examines his work 'Fragments' (2005), in which the artist salvaged pillars and beams of “tieli”, Chinese ironwood, from demolished Qing dynasty temples, and worked with carpenters to create a structure of poles with linking arms.

Internationally acclaimed artist William Kentridge joins Tim Marlow, the RA’s Director of Artistic Programmes, to discuss his career and work.

Artists Christian Marclay and Cornelia Parker RA discuss the impact of the ‘readymade’ and the destructive process in art, as seen in the work of Ai Weiwei.

Curator Annette Wickham explores the story behind this epic drawing by Daniel Maclise and considers why such a remarkable work has been hidden from public view for almost a century.