21.06.2000 - 13.08.2000
Architecture and photography have always been on the Architekturmuseum’s programme. Bernd and Hilla Becher showed material from their minimalist series "Bergwerke" (Mines) in 1986. Christian Vogt exhibited panoramic photographs of interiors in 1990, and Paolo Rosselli showed his interpretation of the Italian vedutas from Jakob Burckhardt’s collection of photographs in 1997.
Now René Burri’s photographs of Luis Barragán’s architecture are to be shown in the Architekturmuseum. The Swiss photographer is a well-known member of the Magnum agency, and has been visiting the Mexican architect regularly since the sixties.
His photographs, shown in extremely large formats in some cases in our museum, give an immediate and direct sense of Barragán’s qualities: the complex handling of volumes, the cheerful, sometimes expressive colour schemes, his profound roots in Mexican tradition and masterly handing of nature and landscape. René Burri places his images in the museum as though they are sculptures, which makes it easier to understand Barragán’s handling of architectural space, and his lucid forms. This approach to the architect’s work is a personal one, and so are the way this is addressed in the photographs and the effect on the observer on the spot. A series of photographs that has been juxtaposed with the purely architectural images in a book that appeared in parallel with the exhibition shows how greatly Barragán’s architectural language is affected by everyday Mexican life. René Burri was equally fascinated by Barragán as a man; he captured his normal working day and facial expressions in portrait photographs and these add an extra dimension to the exhibition with their unique insights into the architect’s life.
The exhibition was devised in parallel with the monographic presentation of Luis Barragán’s work in the Vitra Design Museum.