First female architect to be elected to RSA to be celebrated at museum she had hand in founding

An exhibition celebrating the first female architect elected to the Royal Scottish Academy who was instrumental in the creation of V&A Dundee is to be celebrated in an exhibition at the museum.

Ushida Findlay: Unbroken Spaces at V&A Dundee will explore the creativity, curiosity and courage that shaped local architect Kathryn Findlay's career, whose ideas continue to inspire architects today.

Born in Finavon, Angus, in 1953, the daughter of a sheep farmer, Kathryn Findlay trained at Edinburgh College of Art and the Architectural Association in London before moving to Japan and setting up the architectural practice Ushida Findlay with her husband Eisaku Ushida. She died in 2014.

The display, part of the RSA’s bicentenary celebrations, reunites the archive of Ushida Findlay and Ushida Findlay Architects, presenting it together for the first time. The family has gifted the archive to the RSA’s collections, as one of the largest donations in the Academy's history.

In 2005, Ms Findlay joined the University of Dundee as Professor of Architecture and Environment. Here she was part of the earliest conversations about bringing a V&A museum to Dundee. When her own bid was unsuccessful, she later recalled suggesting that the engineers, Arup, connect with Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, an introduction that helped bring the current building into being.

Ms Findlay’s daughter, Miya Ushida, an architect at Miya Ushida Architects, said: “For my brother and me, the drawings and models that will be on display at V&A Dundee were simply part of everyday life growing up. We always knew our parents were extraordinary and it is a great pleasure to be able to share their work with the public.

“Having worked with my mother during the later years of her career and knowing how deeply connected she felt to Scotland, it is especially meaningful to see her work celebrated in the place she came from.”

Kathryn Findlay is being honoured at the V&A Dundee. | RSA

Visitors will be able to see her initial architectural ideas as part of the display. Known for their bold imagination and fluid, organic forms, Ushida Findlay made a name for themselves in the 1990s with wildly imaginative and otherworldly houses in the UK and Japan.

The free display at V&A Dundee will bring together rare materials from the Ushida Findlay archive, showcasing the pioneering collaboration she formed with partner Eisaku Ushida and tracing the evolution of her architectural career. From early concept drawings to models and project documents, the display offers a unique look at how the partnership combined art, science, and landscape to create an architecture entirely their own.

In Ms Findlay’s final years, working with her daughter and others as Ushida Findlay Architects, she worked across a range of projects in scale and ambition, most notably the ArcelorMittal Orbit for the London 2012 Olympics.

James Wylie, curator at V&A Dundee, said: “Although I never had the chance to meet Kathryn, it's been wonderful uncovering who she was through the Ushida Findlay archive. From the extraordinary buildings she created with Eisaku, like Soft and Hairy House, whose Dali-esque qualities instantly caught my imagination, to the many ideas jotted down in her sketchbooks. I'm delighted to be working with her daughter Miya and the RSA to celebrate one of Scotland's architectural mavericks.”