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Takashi Homma on photographing the window in Le Corbusier’s architecture

Takashi Homma (Photographer) × Canadian Centre for Architecture

12 Feb 2021

Keywords
Interviews
Photography
Videos

Eye Camera Window: Takashi Homma on Le Corbusier will be presented at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Montreal. On display is a series of Takashi Hommaʼs photographs reflecting the photographerʼs visual interpretation of the window in Le Corbusierʼs architecture, which the CCA and the Window Research Institute originally published in the form of a book in 2019. Homma spoke to us and the CCA about the making of this photography series, packed into which is more than a decade of photographing.

 

 

Between 2002 and 2018, Takashi Homma continually photographed the window as a fundamental element of Le Corbusierʼs architecture across Europe and Asia while advancing his own investigations of the photographic medium.

Hommaʼs interpretations include carefully imposed cuts and deliberate framing that go beyond the act of witnessing a building to convey an experience of architecture. Le Corbusier was himself a photographer, compulsive image collector, and strategist of visual communication who integrated the principles of photography into his architecture. Windows, like photographs, are devices that frame views—shaping the way that we perceive space and mediating the complex relationships between interior and exterior, architecture and landscape.

  • Left: Villa Savoye, Poissy-sur- Seine, France © Takashi Homma
    Right: The coloured piers marking the ceremonial entrance to the High Court, part of the Capitol complex, Chandigarh, India, Collection Centre Canadien d’Architecture /Canadian Centre for Architecture
    Commande du CCA /Commissioned by the CCA © Takashi Homma
  • Appartement-atelier, Immeuble locatif à
    la porte Molitor, Paris
    , France © Takashi Homma

Eye Camera Window: Takashi Homma on Le Corbusier presents photographic sequences and clusters that present the window as a spatial and perceptual motif in both Le Corbusier and Hommaʼs work while calling into question the act of seeing. A selection of Le Corbusierʼs original drawings from the CCA Collection will also be exhibited, emphasizing his concepts for the treatment of windows and openings to construct views.

  • Eye Camera Window: Takashi Homma on Le Corbusier, installation view, Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2020 Photo: © CCA

 

 

Eye Camera Window: Takashi Homma on Le Corbusier
Exhibition Curator: Louise Désy, CCA
Octagonal gallery, Canadian Centre for Architecture
Through August 15, 2021

 

Canadian Centre for Architecture
1920 rue Baile
Montréal Québec H3H 2S6
Canada
ww.cca.qc.ca

 

Related publication
Looking Through: Le Corbusier Windows
By Takashi Homma
Co-published by Window Research Institute, Canadian Centre for Architecture and Koenig Books
view details

 

Takashi Homma
Photographer. Born 1962 in Tokyo. In 1999, he received the 24th Kimura Ihei Award for Tokyo Suburbia, a photo book focusing on landscapes in suburban Tokyo and the children who live in them. Held his first solo museum exhibition, New Documentary, in three museums in Japan from 2011 to 2012. Has published numerous photography books, including Tanoshii shashin: Yoiko no tame no shashinshitsu (Heibonsha), THE NARCISSISTIC CITY (MACK), TRAILS (MACK), Symphony – mushrooms from the forest (Case Publishing), Looking Through Le Corbusier Windows (Walther König, CCA, Window Research Institute). He is currently a visiting professor at the Tokyo Zokei University Graduate School.

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