The modernist furniture and fittings also bore the marks of improvisation and the tensions between the intended function of the design which embodied the high hopes that were invested in the U.N. at its inception and the real needs and uses of the people who work there now. The photographed empty spaces have the slightly sinister atmosphere of a Thomas Demand re-created interior space.

In The Riverbed, the ideal of freedom from constraints rubs up against the practicalities of subsistence living. The clean lines of the U.N. building contrast with the chaotic and apparently haphazard debris surrounding the once-mobile dwellings in Spain. There is, nevertheless, a thematic continuity between the two bodies of work: Murphy’s focus on impermanence, on ideals modified by reality, on marks left by human activity, and perhaps most importantly on how we shape and customise the environments in which we live.

‘This is Paradise’ a riverbed dweller declared to Murphy, but his description is at odds with the visible evidence. Here discomfort seems at least as likely as bliss. The warm climate is superficially hospitable, but in the absence of a reliable water supply life can be harsh. If the small natural spring that supplies them dries up, then they will find it difficult to remain. Few of the vehicles are roadworthy after being parked for a decade, and most will eventually disintegrate in situ. If the residents do depart, all this will quickly become landfill. It could literally and metaphorically be the end of the road.