'Building with Light: the Legacy of Robert Elwall' is an international symposium on architectural photography organised by the RIBA. The symposium’s topics will cover broad research areas such as the historical and contemporary evocation of architectural interiors, buildings, place and landscape; forms of photographic response to genius loci and national identity; the reciprocal influence on and with publishing; and curatorial issues and approaches to architectural photography over time. The presentations and discussions will pay tribute to the late Robert Elwall, founder of the RIBA Photographs Collection and a distinguished curator and author whose influential international history of architectural photography 'Building with Light' has given the symposium its title. Keynote speakers will include architectural photographers and academics such as Geoffrey James, Hélène Binet, Iñaki Bergera and Hugh Campbell

Thursday 13 November

9.45 – 10.00   Welcome and introduction by Irena Murray, architectural historian and former Director of the RIBA British Architectural Library
10.00 – 10.40   Keynote, Geoffrey James, photographer, Toronto: Title TBC
10.40 – 11.10   Angelo Maggi, IUAV University, Venice: Capturing the Italian Townscape: the anti-idyllic photographs by Ivy de Wolfe

11.30 – 12.00   Justine Sambrook, Royal Institute of British Architects, London: Ordinary beauty: photography of the everyday
12.00 – 12.30   Andrew Higgott, architectural writer, Birmingham: Eric de Maré: the functional and the beautiful
12.30 – 13.00   Round table / discussion

14.00 – 14.40   Keynote, Hélène Binet, photographer, London: Title TBC
14.40 – 15.10  Gary Winter, English Heritage Archive, Swindon: Getting Value from a Collection: Bedford Lemere & Co at the English Heritage Archive
15.10 – 15.40   Peter Sealy, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts: After a Photograph, Before Photography

16.00 – 17.00  

  • Dervla MacManus, University College Dublin: Cathedrals and Cattle – The Photographs of Frederick Henry Evans in Country Life Magazine
  • Aitor Acilu + Nerea Aranbarri, University of Navarra, Pamplona: Raoul Hausmann: "Mechanical sensibility" in Ibiza
  • John Schlinke, Roger Williams University, Bristol, Rhode Island: Space and White Space: The Architectural Photography and Advertising of Alside Homes
  • Marsha Taichmann, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York: The Photographs of Lynne Cohen and the Presence of Absence
  • Nadya Nilina, Moscow School of Architecture: The photography of Yuri Palmin
  • Sue Barr, Architectural Association, London: The Architecture of Transit: Photographing Beauty and Sublimity in Motorway Architecture from the Alps to Naples

17.00 – 17.30   Round table / discussion
18.00 – 19.00   Curator-led tour of the Edwin Smith exhibition (max 20 people, register with Valeria Carullo, valeria.carullo [at] riba.org)

Friday 14 November

9.45 – 10.00   Intro by Gary Van Zante, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
10.00 – 10.40   Keynote, Hugh Campbell, University College Dublin: The façade fills the frame
10.40 – 11.10   Valeria Carullo, Royal Institute of British Architects, London: Image-makers of British Modernism: Dell & Wainwright at the Architectural Review

11.30 – 12.00   Ruth Hommelen, Leuven University, Brussels-Ghent: Building with Artificial Light: Capturing the City and its Architecture at Night in the 1920s and 1930s
12.00 – 12.30   Davide Deriu, University of Westminster, London: Architectures of Vision: Photography and the Vertigo of the Modern City
12.30 – 13.00    Round table / discussion

14.00 – 14.40   Keynote, Iñaki Bergera, University of Zaragoza: A parallel and unrevealed discourse: photography and modern architecture in Spain
14.40 – 15.10   Alona Pardo, Barbican, London + Elias Redstone, independent curator, Paris: Constructing Worlds: Photography and Architecture in the Modern Age
15.10 – 15.40   Emily Bills, Julius Shulman Institute, School of Architecture, Woodbury University, Los Angeles: Marvin Rand: Secrets of Los Angeles Uncovered

16.00 – 16.30   Marco Iuliano, University of Liverpool + Pierluigi Serraino, architect and author, San Francisco: Pairs or Peers? Architects and their Photographers after WWII
16.30 – 17.00   Karla Britton, Yale University, New Haven: Robert Damora: Total Architecture and the Pax-Americana
17.00 – 17.30   Round table / discussion
17.30 – 18.00   Conclusion
18.00 – 19.00   Curator-led tour of the Edwin Smith exhibition (max 20 people, register with Valeria Carullo, valeria.carullo [at] riba.org)