Architectural photographs from the Alberto Sartoris Collection in dialogue with objects from the Vitra Design Museum

An exhibition of the Archives de la Construction Moderne of the Lausanne Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) and Vitra Design Museum

Between 1932 and 1957, the Italian-Swiss architect Alberto Sartoris (1901-1998) published six comprehensive anthologies in Milan that have attained mythic status in reflecting the reception of architecture: the three progressively expanded editions Gli Elementi dell'architettura funzionale (1932-1941), and the three-volume Encyclopédie de l'architecture nouvelle (1948-1957), a visual panorama encompassing over two thousand mostly photographic images. This editorial effort of unprecedented scope went a long way toward establishing a frame of reference for modern architecture.

Today housed in the Archives de la Construction Moderne in Lausanne, the collection of architectural photographs that Sartoris compiled contains over 8,000 original prints of internationally eminent documentary value. It encompasses the works of some 650 architects from all over the world, including Le Corbusier, Giuseppe Terragni, Hans Scharoun, Richard Neutra and Luis Barragan, just to highlight some of the most well known names.

Originally produced for documentary purposes, many of the photographs have impressive aesthetic qualities as well. At the same time, the prints by the 410 photographers represented in the collection also raise the question of the historically complex relationships between architecture and photography - especially in the context of the 1920s and 1930s when photography was struggling for its autonomy. Furthermore, they document an area of 20th century architectural history that has been persistently underappreciated: the mechanisms of the production and proliferation of the "image of modern architecture" and the central role bestowed on photography in this process.

With 180 original prints by 60 different photographers, the selection shown in the exhibition features both recognised and forgotten buildings of modern architecture and presents the Alberto Sartoris project by considering the following aspects:

• what was documented in photographs at the international level and what were the common aspects (or differences) in the different photographic languages involved;
• how intensive is the dialogue between the photographic image and the architectural intention, as illustrated by the work of about ten different photographers;
• what is the relationship of experimentation and the autonomy of photography to the architecture.

Furthermore, the photographs are put in context of the media in which they were prominently featured. For instance, the exhibition presents numerous historic books and journals from the Sartoris Archive and the archive of the Vitra Design Museum. In addition, it juxtaposes the photos with a number of the depicted buildings using architectural models created especially for the exhibition as well as with an exemplary selection of furniture by the architects whose architectural works are captured on film. These include a 1928 metal folding chair by Pierre Chareau, a spectacular one-off piece by Carlo Mollino from 1953 together with one of his dramatic "Arabesco" tables, an armchair from the interior furnishings of the Paimio Sanatorium by Alvar Aalto with two cantilevered variants from the first series in 1930-31, a Corbusier chaise longue from the 1929 pre-production and a chair from the Casa del Fascio by Giuseppe Terragni in Como along with 20 other rare and significant original furniture pieces from the Vitra Design Museum Collection.