The Royal Festival Hall has always existed for me as both a building and a memory.
In August 2024, I began conversations with Ellie Jollife (architect, editor) and Sandy Rattray (architectural historian, author) around a new photographic commission for a publication marking the Hall’s 75th anniversary, to be published by Merrell. From the outset, the intention was clear: this would not be a conventional architectural survey. The work needed to sit alongside archival material, not replicate it - to enter into a dialogue with the building’s past while keeping a firm footing in its present.
That past is inseparable from the moment of its creation. The Hall was conceived as part of the Festival of Britain; a project of post-war optimism, designed to signal renewal and a new kind of public life. Built rapidly on the South Bank, it was intended not as an elite cultural monument, but as a civic space: open, accessible, and forward-looking. That idea - radical at the time - still lingers in the building today.
The initial proposal centred on a documentary approach. Interior and exterior views would be interwoven with the life of the building itself. Artists, audiences, workers, passersby. The themes we discussed - artists and audiences, theatre and occasion, concrete order, inclusivity - were not imposed ideas but qualities already embedded within the fabric of the Hall. The task was to reveal them.
Architecturally, the building carries this ethos in its structure. Its sweeping foyers, terraces, and open circulation spaces were designed to dissolve the boundary between inside and outside, between performance and everyday life - a deliberate rejection of the more hierarchical, closed-off concert halls that preceded it. Even now, that sense of permeability persists: a place where you can arrive without a ticket, where the building itself becomes part of the experience.
A key question quickly emerged: how do you photograph such an iconic building - one that has already been so thoroughly documented - and still say something new?
The answer, for me, came through a combination of memory and perspective.
I first visited the Royal Festival Hall as a child, around the age of nine or ten, with my father. The South Bank at that time felt very different - less open, less inviting. I remember a sense of unease: shadowed walkways, figures gathered around fires, a kind of Dickensian atmosphere that left a deep impression. That contrast feels even more poignant when set against the Hall’s original ambition- a beacon of light and openness in a still-recovering city.
Inside, the experience shifted completely. The music was powerful.
Those early impressions stayed with me - not as clear narratives, but as fragments of feeling. Returning now, decades later, the commission became something of a reunion.
Rather than trying to outdo the legacy of previous photographers, I found myself returning to that childlike curiosity. What happens if you approach the building not as a fixed icon, but as a place to be discovered again? That instinct led, quite literally, inside the organ - a space that had occupied my imagination for years.
The broader photographic approach also evolved from my personal work, particularly the Traces series and the Neelam Cinema project in India. Allies + Morrison responded strongly to that way of seeing: an unpolished, honest lens. There was a shared understanding that this should not be a “fluff piece”. The building needed to be shown as it is - layered, and carrying time and legacy.
And time is inscribed everywhere here. Though the Hall has undergone careful refurbishment. Most notably, in the early 2000s, when its original spatial clarity and material qualities were restored - it has never been stripped of its life. Instead, it retains the marks of decades of use, adaptation, and occupation. Scuffed walls, worn steps, the quiet traces of countless visitors; these became as important as the architectural form itself.
Equally important was the decision to place people at the centre of the work. The Royal Festival Hall is, at its core, a democratic space - a place where high culture and everyday life coexist, just as its founders intended. Opera and breakdancers, rehearsals and casual encounters, performance and passage. I often found myself reversing the expected viewpoint: looking from the stage back towards the audience, rather than the other way around. It felt closer to the truth of the building - not as a monument, but as a lived space.
The process unfolded over a series of visits, allowing the work to build incrementally. This wasn’t about capturing a single definitive image, but about constructing a layered portrait over time - something that reflects both the architectural legacy and the ongoing life within it.
Alongside the stills, moving image began to play a role. The videos we produced feel like a natural extension of the project - looser, more immediate, and, in many ways, more instinctive. They open up new narrative possibilities and bring a different kind of energy to the work.
This publication marks my sixth major book, with another to follow later this year. But this project, in particular, feels distinct. It sits at the intersection of personal history and public space - a building I have known, in different ways, for most of my life.
On many levels, it feels like coming full circle.
Royal Festival Hall — 75th Anniversary Publication
Edited by Eleanor Jolliffe and Sandy Rattray
Published by Merrell Publishers
Photography by Edmund Sumner
View and purchase the book here.
Thames & Hudson presents Casa Mexicana, a visual dialogue on contemporary Mexican architecture through the lens of Edmund Sumner. A decade in the making, this book captures the country’s rich architectural landscape—where tradition, materiality, and modernity converge.From remote retreats to urban interventions, Casa Mexicana is both a tribute and an invitation to explore the imagination, resilience, and craftsmanship shaping Mexico’s built environment today.
The ‘Traces’ sequence collapses the binary opposition between the material and the metaphysical, peeling back invisible and visible layers of the architectural form to expose latent resonances from generations past.
In representing contexts as culturally and topographically diverse as Hacienda Holl in Mexico and Inagawa in Japan, it identifies cultural ‘traces’ as spiritual as well as historical phenomena; innate, eminently personal, yet universally felt and perceptible through an art-photography capable of documenting lived experiences in real time.
Each photograph reads as an aesthetically engaged histogram, reflecting the incredible depth of engagement which is not only perceptible in, but fundamental to architectural history.
Edmund's interior portrait of Manuel Cervantes studio in Mexico has been selected for the Architecture room at the Royal Academy Summer Show, 2024.
Edmund has been appointed Official Architectural Photographer for Design Doha - Arab Design Now
Edmund has been appointed as official Architectural Photographer for Sharjah Architecture Triennial
New works in UK and Greece with John Gerrard / Pace Gallery
A raw sound / video project looking at the Aylesbury health centre during construction
Edmunds' image of View Port Pavillion Marseille is chosen as the lead image for Norman Foster retrospective at the Pompidou centre paris
Wallpaper July issue
Studio 8 Delhi Studio Array Architects
New video work with Under Mango Tree Architecture and Design
TOMOAKI UNO ARCHITECTS
Meito Arts Association office featured in Azure magazine
New works with RSHP Architects of 45th floor of Leadenhall Building London
Tomoaki Uno's Meito Arts office Pavilion is features in April issue of Wallpaper print and on line
New works with Mexico based TAC (Taller Alberto Calleja)
New Works in LA with Mathew Royce Architects
New works with Raphael Pardo
Lighthouse Children's Home Conrad Koslowsky
New works with Morris + Company
New Works with ludwig Godefroy Architetcs
Mexico City November 2022
20 Pages on Casa Wabi Mexico
New works with Mauricio Rocha Architects
Níall McLaughlin Portrait
New works with RSHP Architects
New works with LTS Architects
New works with Droop projects
New works with Rodic Davidson Architects
New works with Tom Rutt Studio
New works with Conrad Koslowsky Architects
link Edmund is working with Wilkinson Eyre architects shooting a number of projects including South Bank University
Edmund has been commissioned to shoot a number of projects for RSHP including a group shot of the whole studio of 120 people
Edmund has spent the last 3 weeks working in Mexico with commissions from Gantous / Habita group, Mauricio Rocha and others images to follow
Edmund has been invited to help the team at Frame magazine judge this years entries
New Works with Tsuruta Architects
Edmund has begun working with talented Scottish studio Brown and Brown architects Link
Ashraya - New shoot with long term Client David kirkland
A labour of love taking in 22 projects thousands of miles apart has been published to great critical Aclaim
Edmund is proud to announce an on going collaboration with highly regarded Stephan Schmid/Albumen GalleryALBUMEN GALLERY
Sameep Padoras temple shot Jan 2020 is reviewed over 8 pages in Architectural Review
Architizer The Leaning Man (द लीनिंग मैन) one of 10 commended entries to Architizer One Photo competition
We live in curious times, but for me the positives far outweigh the negatives. I hope that when the dust settles, we will all be in a better place.
I have been using the time to re -imagine the places and spaces that I've been lucky enough to have experienced.
Making prints has been a sideline of my practice for many years, but I'm increasingly drawn to it again and jumped at being involved in the Artists Support Pledge .
Thanks to GreyScape and @barbican_city_of_london for the feature link below:
Pedro Reyes studio is featured in Nov issue of Interior design magazine USA
13 years after shooting for Wallpaper magazine
Edmund has reshot the space for Studio Maclean.com
Images to follow
Kengo Kuma Mexico shoot geatured in Wallpaper December issue
Edmunds shoot for Pedro Reyes new studio in Mexico city in 6 page feature in Interni Magazine (October Issue)
Edmunds work with Fumihiko Maki/Aga Khan foundation in this months RIBA Journal
Interview with Dezeen on the method behind recent shoot with David Chipperfield architects
2 days spent shooting Walmer road house by Peter Salter with Baylight property
Dezeen are running a feature on the 'Wooden house' by Delhi based Matra architects.
Shooting for @
Edmund has won 1st place in the Indian Architecture dialogue photography competition with his image of the Neelam cinema Chandigarh designed by Le Corbusier
Balkrishna Doshi, the 90-year-old Indian architect who worked with Le Corbusier, supervising his designs for the city of Chandigarh, has been named as the winner of the 2018 Pritzker prize, the highest accolade in architecture.
Edmund has been working with Doshi for over 10 years , some of this work is featured in Wallpaper magazine
Edmund has spent the first few weeks of 2018 working with Thames and Hudson publishers on the 'Indian House' book. Travelling to a dozen locations from Satkol to Shillim Edmund has recorded the work of some of India’s' finest studios. Covering 9 houses including work by Matra architects, Gurjit Matharoo and Khosla associates. The project continues….
Edmund has been appointed an official photographer for London design festival 2017 . Briefed to capture key installations at the Victoria and Albert Museum by designers such as Ross Lovegrove , Es Devlin and Finn Talbot.
Edmund has been in Rio de Janeiro shooting the British school for John McAslan and Partners
Edmund has been shooting the 'Sun and Rain' room for Tonkin Liu architects
Edmund has just returned from 5 day shoot for John Macaslan and Mesheireb properties in Doha Quatar
Dezeen are running an Photo interview feature looking at 2 shoots on the Moryiama house Tokyo , both shoots are almost 10 years old.
