Towards a New Architecture

Amanda Williams

05.08.2015 - 28.08.2015
Opening 05.08.15 6-8pm
Artist Talks 27.08.15 6-7pm

“I will begin by drawing attention to this crucial fact: a plan proceeds from the inside out, for a house or a palace is an organism similar to any living creature… the out-side is always an inside”. -Le Corbusier

towards a new architecture takes its title from the 1926 manifesto Vers une architecture by Le Corbusier. The publication comprised a series of essays, illustrations and photographs designed to state a case for reviving architecture, and it could be argued reviving ‘a life’, in the aftermath of WWI. Very much a product of the thinking of the day, it revisits primitive and classical concepts to imagine a future free from the constraints of the present. Yet despite its Utopian contradictions, it remains, in the words of architectural theorist Reyner Banham, the most influential work “beyond that of any other architectural work published in [the 20th] century”.

The new series of photographs and sculptures presented in this exhibition question the enduring significance of Le Corbusier’s legacy and ask whether a new architecture is possible today in this post-modern era of hybrid space and forms. The allegory of the cave is the central motif used here; a primitive space that represents countless symbolic fears and desires and like the womb, is the ultimate primordial refuge.