Associate presents at the 199th RSA Annual Exhibition
We are delighted to announce that John Burns, Associate at Holmes Miller, has two pieces presented at this year’s 199th Royal Scottish Academy of Art & Architecture’s Annual Exhibition in Edinburgh. The Annual Exhibition is the largest and longest-running annual exhibition of contemporary art and architecture in Scotland with work showcased for its quality and significance. The pieces exhibited by John are from his recent research on embodied energy in historical buildings from the forthcoming book ‘Form Follows Fuel: 14 Buildings from Antiquity to the Oil Age’ completed in collaboration with Florian Urban and Barnabas Calder. The research aims to establish quantifiable embodied energy figures against historic buildings providing comparative analysis of their climatic impact.
The first piece is a collection of original drawings of the 14 buildings from the research in which material quantities were measured to derive embodied energy. The second piece is an elevation of Frederick William Stevens intricately detailed Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (formerly Victoria Terminus) built in 1878 in Mumbai. Together they represent the importance of modelling, architectural draughting and rigorous measuring plays in this new field of architectural history.
John noted, ‘It’s a privilege and an honour to be able to exhibit work at the RSA Annual Exhibition alongside Scotland’s leading artists and architects. The work represents more than architectural draughtsmanship but also the role drawing plays in analysing architecture in relation to embodied energy and the wider climate emergency. Sustainability is a key priority in the work of our practice and in my research, to be able to demonstrate this at the RSA shows how important and integral it is to architectural practice going forward.’
The 199th RSA Annual Exhibition will be open with free entry to the public from Saturday 3rd May to Sunday 8th June 2025 at the Royal Scottish Academy on The Mound in central Edinburgh.
View online website: Architecture Viewing Room | 3 May - 8 June 2025 | RSA Annual Online
‘Form Follows Fuel: 14 Buildings from Antiquity to the Oil Age’ will be available from Routledge from the 9th of September 2025.