The Martin Centre Research Seminar Series: William J. R. Curtis

The 56th Martin Centre Research Seminar Series - Easter Term, Seminar 4 (Final for academic year 2025-2026)

We are delighted to welcome William J. R. Curtis, who will give a talk on:

MODERN ARCHITECTURE, MYTHICAL LANDSCAPES AND ANCIENT RUINS

Abstract:
When one digs beneath the surface of the work of ‘modern masters, such as Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, Alvar Aalto, Louis I. Kahn, or Jorn Utzon, one discovers many links to the past. Amédée Ozenfant, author of The Foundations of Modern Art, declared: “For deep in every revolution, discreetly hidden, resides a Classicism which is a form of constant.” We encounter the theme of returning to fundamental principles by experiencing, analysing, sketching and transforming ancient ruins. Ruins are incomplete and resemble open books onto which architects project their retrospective obsessions. Speaking of Renaissance figures like Palladio and Michelangelo, James Ackerman suggested that ‘artists invent their own versions of Antiquity’. The same applies in the modern period even though the preoccupations, prejudices and visual conventions are different. Thus, Le Corbusier ‘re-invented’ the Acropolis in Athens in a manner which suited his search for an authentic modern architecture. Aalto went back to the Ancient Greeks especially their theatres in search of a democratic monumentality for Finland. Kahn returned to Rome, Egypt and even Buddhist India in his quest for origins. Wright reimagined Pre-Columbian ruins in his western and south western American projects. Utzon transformed the platforms of Monte Alban in Mexico in his ideas for Sydney Opera House. The key word of course is transformation: the ability to interiorise experience and images by means of sketches, then transform them in memory and through abstraction. That is the alchemy of invention.

Speaker bio:
William J.R. Curtis is a historian, critic, artist and photographer. Educated at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, BA 1^st Class Honours, 1970, and Harvard University, Ph D. 1975, he has taught the history of architecture, theories of design and architectural studios at many universities including Harvard, the AA and the University of Cambridge, where he was Slade Professor of Fine Art 2003-4. He is committed to visual education in a broad sense. His best-known books include Modern Architecture Since 1900 and Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms, both widely translated and referred to as ‘classics’. Among other books: Balkrishna Doshi: an Architecture for India; Denys Lasdun: Architecture, City, Landscape; Le Corbusier at Work, The Genesis of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Gonzalez de Leon, Obra Reunida. Curtis has published on a vast range of other subjects from North African mud buildings, to Australian Aboriginal spear throwers, to abstraction in photography, and contributes to critical journals such as the Architectural Review and El Croquis. He has written seminal texts on Aalto, Kahn, Wright, Siza, Moneo, Ando among others and keeps a sharp eye on contemporary developments. In 2015 a retrospective was held in the Palace of Carlos V of the Alhambra with the title 'Abstraccion y Luz/ Abstraction and Light: Paintings, Drawings, Photographs by William J.R. Curtis' accompanied by a book with a Preface written by Alvaro Siza. Among his awards: the Hitchcock Medallion of the SAHGB,1984; CICA Critic’s Award 1985; the 1999 Gold Medal of the National Honor Society in Architecture and Allied Arts (USA); a 50year Commemoration Medal from the Museum of Finnish Architecture in 2006; the Golden Award for Global Contribution to Architecture (India) in 2016; and the Médaille de l’Académie d’Architecture, 2022.