Explore small spaces

If you haven’t had a chance to catch The Victoria and Albert Museum’s 1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces exhibition, tomorrow evening might be an excellent opportunity to do so.

The exhibition, which according to our sources has shaken up London’s sometimes staid museum scene, features the installation of seven built structures from leading international architects in and about the museum building.

This month’s V&A Friday Late takes 1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces as its focus, and will provide an exciting range of supplements to the already ground-breaking exhibition. Architectural practice Vazio SA, which has built a steel structure formed from interconnected performance booths for the exhibition, and Triptyque will be giving talks about contemporary architecture, focusing on the modernist movement.

Visitors will be able to watch Graham Ellard and Stephen Johnstone’s film Machine on Black Ground, an abstract exploration of how film can document or create architectural space.

If you’re more interested in enjoying the spaces themselves rather than theorising about the discipline, the Helsinki-based architect and musician Tuomas Toivonen will be providing a performance to complement the exhibition themed on acid house and urbanism. Progressive theatre group The Factory will be responding to each of the installations and there will be jazz, craft workshops and an opportunity to meet V&A artists-in-residence Aberrant Architecture.

For those interested in the museum’s original architecture, Senior V&A archivist Christopher Marsden will be giving a guided tour of the building’s public and non-public spaces. This will include a rare chance for male visitors to take a look at the recently renovated ladies lavatories –  by architect Glowacka Rennie with artist Felice Varini – without being promptly escorted from the premises.

1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces is on at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 until 30 August.