Lecture
Thursday 21 February 2008, 18:00
Auditorium SG, EPFL
Inaugural lecture of the exibition Julius Shulman, photographer
All began just by chance
Ask Julius Shulman how his career started and his reply sounds like the opening line of a fairy-tale: “Well, it all began just by chance.” It was indeed a chance encounter with the architect Richard Neutra in 1936 which turned out to be the toehold in the “scene”. Neutra was putting the final touches to the Kun House, which is an icon of Modernist architecture in the United States that still stands to this day. He was full of enthusiasm being presented with Shulmans photographs, continued to commission his services and recommended him to other architects. Los Angeles is rich in treasures by renowned architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Rudolf M. Schindler, Pierre Koenig to name but a few. Julius Shulman got the opportunity to put his extensive and proven expertise as a self-taught photographer to professional use. His career lasts for over 70 years now and has not come to an end.
“All began just by chance” also is the suitable description of how the exhibition “A Lifetime for Architecture – The Photographer Julius Shulman” came about. Just a few weeks before the archive was handed over to the Getty Research Institute, the DAM was able to select the photographs it wanted, making use of the last opportunity to show an exhibition on Shulman outside the United States on the occasion of his 95th birthday in October 2005.
After Istanbul, Tübingen and Munich Lausanne is the fourth venue, others will follow.
The exhibition has been jointly organized with the Fotografie Forum international Frankfurt/Main.
The DAM would like to thank both the US Consulate General in Frankfurt and Bilfinger Berger AG for their generous support.
Christina Gräwe
Born 1965. Grown up and training as a nurse in Munich. Moved to Berlin; studied Spanish and History of Art at Freie Universität and architecture at Technical University Berlin. Employed in various architectural practices. 2003-2005 trainee at Deutsches Architekturmuseum Frankfurt/Main, curator since May 2005. Guest lecturer at TU Berlin, public relation work for architecture offices, various publications.
Lecture
Thursday 21 February 2008, 18:00
Auditorium SG, EPFL
Inaugural lecture of the exibition Julius Shulman, photographer
One photographer, two architects:
Julius Shulman in the Alberto Sartoris Collection
Compiled in about 1947, the documentary corpus collected by Alberto Sartoris for the “American” volume of his Encyclopédie de l’architecture nouvelle contains 117 photographs by Julius Shulman.
These pictures document the work of Richard Neutra and Raphaël Soriano during the years 1936 to 1946: a decisive period both for the crystallisation of Californian modernist architecture and for the aesthetic and technical evolution of architectural photography. In particular, they evince the emergence of the “Shulman system”, which was developed in a complex interaction in his contact with these two architects, who were his first clients. The notoriety that Neutra had already acquired reinforced that of his now exclusive photographer. The young Soriano, in turn, owed Shulman part of his authority and the essence of his memory.
These examples affirm the new status of the architectural photographer so spectacularly embodied by Shulman, but they are also a good illustration of his colleagues Ezra Stoller, Guillermo Zamora, Lucien Hervé and Francesc Català-Roca at an international level.
Antoine Baudin
The art historian Dr Antoine Baudin is a member of the research staff of the Archives de la construction moderne. Among other works on the art and architecture of the 20th century, he has also published Photographie et architecture moderne. La collection Alberto Sartoris (Lausanne, PPUR, 2003) and his variant Photography, Modern Architecture and Design (EPFL Press/Vitra Design Museum, 2005).