Curated
by New York curator Vladimir Belogolovsky, the exhibition Toward an
Architecture: Five Points juxtaposes 70 drawings and photos of four
creatives—two architects and two architectural photographers. Their works are
paired with the master’s quotes from his seminal 1923 book, Vers une
Architecture (Toward an Architecture). Photographer Roland
Halbe brings highlights from his prolific career—unconventional views of
buildings and architectural fragments he captured around the globe. Nic
Lehoux
presents a photo essay of the just-completed expansion of the Joslyn Art Museum
designed by Snøhetta in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. Christoph Hesse assembles photos of
“Open Mind Places” pavilions, which he has been realizing in his home village,
Korbach, Germany. Nikoloz Lekveishvili gathers his characteristic sketches of
historic architecture and some of his own; he enjoys drawing people and nature
by relying on his imagination to augment reality.
Casa
Curutchet was designed by Le Corbusier as a functional work of art. The house was
commissioned by Dr. Pedro Domingo Curutchet (1901–1989), a progressive
surgeon with various artistic interests. Le Corbusier, who had visited La Plata
once in 1929, accepted the commission in 1948. He told his client, “I am
interested in making your house a domestic masterpiece with simplicity,
functionality, and harmony.” The plans were ready by the following year, and the
construction was started in 1950. At various stages, it was supervised by
architects Amancio Williams, Simon Ungar, and engineer Alberto Valdez. Curutchet moved to the house with his wife and two
daughters in December 1955. The family lived there for a decade before moving
to the nearby town of Loberia, preferring a countryside lifestyle.
The
house features five points of Le Corbusier’s modern architecture—pilotis, open
plan, independent facades, ribbon windows, and a roof garden. Additionally,
the design features the architect’s signature Modulor system of
measurements and incorporates extensive glazing, a
brise-soleil along its frontage, and vigorously colored niches. Two main
volumes are—the second-floor medical office over the entrance and garage
and the three-level, two-bedroom apartment in the back. Both wings are lifted
above the landscape and are connected with a switchback exterior ramp
invigorated by a poplar tree and Enio Iommi’s sculpture. In 1987, Le
Corbusier’s centennial, the house was designated as a national historic
monument. It was restored in 1988 for the first time and has been leased to the
Colegio de Arquitectos de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (CAPBA) from the
Curutchet family since 1991. In 2016, Casa Curutchet was placed on the UNESCO
World Heritage List.
Bios
Nic
Lehoux is a Canadian architectural photographer and filmmaker who runs Nic
Lehoux Architectural Photography in Washington, USA. For almost 30 years, he
has worked closely with some of the most prominent international architects. He
calls himself a passionate observer of light, architecture, and the human
condition. His images are distinguished for their one-point perspectives,
abstraction, compositional rigor, and inclusion of people at the decisive
moment. The photographer’s work has been featured in many books, magazines,
museum exhibitions, and festivals.
Roland
Halbe runs Roland Halbe Fotografie in Stuttgart, Germany. He studied
photography at IED in Cagliari, Italy, and has been a freelance architectural
photographer since 1988. In 1995, he co-founded Artur Images, Europe’s biggest
picture library for architecture photography. He was commissioned to photograph
the 2006 MoMA exhibition “On-Site: New Architecture in Spain.” Halbe is a
contributing photographer for Architectural Record; his clients include
Morphosis, Zaha Hadid Architects, Meier Partners, The Ateliers Jean Nouvel, and
Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos.
Christoph
Hesse founded Christoph Hesse Architects and runs his ateliers in Korbach and
Berlin, Germany. He received a Master of Architecture from ETH Zurich and a
Master of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard’s Graduate School of
Design. He taught at his Alma Maters, TU Darmstadt, Cairo University, and
Tsinghua University in Beijing. Hesse exhibited his projects at Sapienza
University of Rome, Aedes Berlin, University of Florence, Documenta Fifteen in
Kassel, New Museum in New York, the German Museum of Architecture in Frankfurt,
and the Venice Architecture Biennale.
Nikoloz
Lekveishvili is a Tbilisi-born architect and the founder of the architectural
studio TIMM Architecture. He studied architecture at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts
Academy in Istanbul and earned his master’s from Politecnico di Milano. He
worked in Italy, Turkey, Germany, Georgia, and India. Currently, he serves as a
lecturer at Tbilisi State Academy of Art and Ilia State University. The
architect’s completed projects include museums, cultural centers, houses, and
the transformation of the Apollo Cinema into a Cultural Center, all in Tbilisi.
He runs his conceptual gallery StealArtGallery, SAG.
Vladimir
Belogolovsky, a Cooper Union School of Architecture graduate, runs his
Curatorial Project in New York, focusing on curating and designing
architectural exhibitions, including world tours of Harry Seidler, Emilio
Ambasz, Sergei Tchoban, Architecture from Colombia, the Architects’ Voices
series, and shows at the Venice Architecture Biennales (2008, 2014), Moscow
Architecture Biennale (2014), and Buenos Aires Architecture Biennials (2017,
19, 24). He authored 20 books (Imagine Buildings Floating Like Clouds, China
Dialogues, Conversations with Architects, etc.).
