Alvar Aalto Museum exhibits Photographs by William J.R. Curtis

Tuesday, 16 October 2007 01:13

Jyväskylä, Finland - The exhibition Structures of Light presents a selection of architectural photographs taken by the historian, critic, painter and photographer William J. R. Curtis. Drawing upon images collected during his numerous travels, the exhibition provides an architectural journey through space and time, juxtaposing the built cultures of past civilizations with more modern examples.

This is no mere record of travels. Rather it is an invitation to see architecture, to appreciate it and to reflect upon its meaning. The exhibition is mounted in a way that permits the reading of parallels, perspectives and intuitive connections between images. The photographs distil the experience of buildings and possess a strong order of their own. Through his concentrated focus upon the unique, Curtis hints at universal qualities of architecture. On exhibition through 25 November, 2007.

Far from being simple records, these images express a personal vision. Curtis thinks of a photograph almost as a painting: a constructed space with its own internal harmony of geometry, colour, light and shade. This abstract order intensifies the presence of things seen, framed and photographed. He suggests that: “A photograph works when one succeeds in capturing all the energy of a particular place, event or instant in a rigorous organization of forms capable of touching the mind”.

The photographs in the exhibition ‘Structures of Light’ oscillate between abstraction and representation. They engage with the world yet hint at an order beyond appearances. In effect, they are structured visual ideas. Seen together they communicate silent messages which go beyond any obvious didactic purpose. Overall, the installation resembles a resonance chamber of visual correspondences. It is like a voyage through the history of forms.

‘Structures of Light’ is an exhibition for the general public, for the student or for the specialist. It is an invitation to open one’s eyes, to appreciate the multiple realities of architecture, even to reflect upon one’s daily surroundings. Through powerfully structured, poetic images, William J. R. Curtis transmits his love of travel and exploration, his interest in different cultures, his knowledge of buildings, cities and landscapes. By focusing attention through the lens, he evokes certain fundamentals of architecture.

William J.R. Curtis is an internationally known historian and critic of architecture; he is also a painter and photographer. Born in 1948 in Birchington, Kent, England, he studied at London University and at Harvard, and has taught at numerous universities around the world. In 2003-2004 he occupied the post of Slade Professor of Fine Art in the University of Cambridge. His best known books are Modern Architecture Since 1900 (Phaidon, 3^rd edition, 1996; French, Italian, German and Spanish editions 2003-5) and Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms (Phaidon 1986) but he has also published numerous other monographs and critical essays on a wide range of subjects from Alvar Aalto, to recent Spanish architecture, to mud buildings in the Sahara, to Australian Aboriginal spear throwers, to the sculptures of Richard Serra. He is fascinated by the universe of forms, by the notion of visual ideas, and by abstraction as a way of intensifying thoughts and perceptions. He thinks of architecture in relationship to the forces of the natural world.

Curtis has received numerous awards including a Silver Medal at the World Biennale of Architecture in 1989, a National Honor’s Society Gold Medal (USA) in 1999 and a Foundation Medal of the Museum of Finnish Architecture marking its 50^th Anniversary (2006). His drawings and paintings known as ‘mental landscapes’ have been exhibited at the Museum of Finnish Architecture, Helsinki (2000) (with the catalogue Mental Landscapes: Mielen Maisemia), at the Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid (2002) (with the catalogue Mental Landscapes: Paisajes Mentales) and at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University (2004). William Curtis lives in the Lot in south west France and is currently preparing a further exhibition and a book combining his drawings, paintings and photographs around the themes of ‘horizons of the mind’ and the abstraction of landscape.

Alvar Aalto Academy has published an exhibition cataloque, Structures of Light, which is available from the museum shop.

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