AA Chair of Academic Committee, Co-Head of Projective Cities and Diploma 7 Tutor Hamed Khosravi has received a Graham Foundation Grant for the Project The Architecture of Dreams: The Work of Rita Wolff. The Architecture of Dreams is an archival and curatorial research project into the work of self-taught surrealist painter Rita Wolff, whose architectural paintings dominated the intellectual and cultural scene of architecture since early 1980s.

The project aims to document, digitise and analyse the archival materials and works of Rita Wolff. She entered the realm of architecture through her then-partner Léon Krier by painting some of his projects in 1977. Ever since, she has been a provocateur and harbinger of a new architectural culture. Her paintings extend far beyond the realism of a place and time. They are a symbolist quest for reality of an authoritative world and a search for the artistic means for its reconstruction. They show us a world that oscillates between compassion and melancholy.

Image: Public Loggia in Main Square, Rita Wolff, 1977. Watercolour on card, 17 × 22 cm. Rita Wolff’s Collection. Photo by Lydia Evans.