Fields in a Niche
Exhibitions
A collaboration between the German Historical Institute London (GHIL) and doctoral researchers from the Architecture PhD Programme at the School of Architecture, Royal College of Art (RCA).
Curated by Ines Weizman
An ongoing exhibition series launching at the German Historical Institute London on 5 November 2026
Fields in a Niche is a series of research exhibitions developed in collaboration between the German Historical Institute London (GHIL) and the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art (RCA). Presenting ongoing research from the RCA’s Architecture PhD Programme, the project brings together architects, artists, filmmakers, designers and historians to create a shared space for experimentation, exchange and public discussion.
Taking its title both from an architectural niche in the entrance of a building remodelled by John Nash in 1777–78, once occupied by a bust but now empty and awaiting a new purpose through this collaboration, and from the idea of “niche research,” Fields in a Niche explores how specific questions and fragments can open onto larger fields of inquiry. Each exhibition begins with a particular object, document, image, material, book or encounter, using it as an aperture onto wider intellectual, historical and spatial contexts.
The series develops a spatial and methodological vocabulary across the different spaces of the GHIL. The architectural niche foregrounds the tangible, housing a sculptural figure that occupies an ambiguous position between sculpture and mannequin: at once a representation of the human body and a support for changing “garments,” materials and objects. With each exhibition, the figure assumes a different appearance. In the staircase and reception rooms, large-scale images explore questions of looking and scale, moving between close-up and wider views, detail and context, fragment and territory. The display at the library opens onto an intellectual field through a book that has informed, challenged or redirected the research, foregrounding reading, annotation and interpretation as research practices. Further works may be strategically situated throughout the building, responding to its architecture, everyday uses and particular spatial conditions. The building itself thus becomes part of the research apparatus and a mnemonic space, recalling the art of memory in which objects and images are placed within architectural interiors to establish connections across histories, materials and ideas.
The selected book also connects the temporary exhibition to the longer institutional life of the GHIL. Closely read, annotated or conceptually unpacked through each project, these books remain after the exhibitions have ended: a physical copy enters the GHIL library and is recorded in its catalogue. As installations appear and disappear, Fields in a Niche leaves behind a growing bibliography, an evolving archive of the collaboration that traces the different fields of inquiry and creates new connections between research projects over time. Accompanied by conversations and public events, Fields in a Niche approaches exhibition-making as a form of research in itself: a means of testing ideas, establishing connections and bringing different disciplinary perspectives into dialogue.
Architecture PhD
Postgraduate Research
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General Information
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Contact
Prof Dr Ines Weizman
Professor of History and Theory of Architecture
Head of PhD Programme
School of Architecture
Royal College of Art
Kensington Gore, London
SW7 2EU
ines.weizman@rca.ac.uk
School of Architecture, Royal College of Art
Postgraduate Research (PGR) Programme