Alturas de Macchu Picchu: Martín Chambi - Álvaro Siza at work

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) presents the exhibition titled: Alturas de Macchu Picchu: Martín Chambi - Álvaro Siza at work. This exhibition displays sketches from Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza's trip to Macchu Picchu in 1995 alongside 1920s photographs by Peruvian photographer Martin Chambi. The dialogue between these materials explores the appropriation of reality by two different authors. Supplemented by documentation of Siza's landmark social housing project in Évora, Portugal, the exhibition furthermore investigates the Pritzker Prize architect's use of sketching both to record reality and as a design tool.

The images shown in the exhibition are, on one hand, accurate site documentations. However, they are nonetheless filtered through the aesthetic and political inclinations of their creators. Ultimately, both Siza and Chambi present Macchu Picchu as a landscape of their invention.

The exhibition displays thirty-five sketches by Álvaro Siza and includes the original notebook #399 from his travels to Macchu Picchu in 1995. The architect's social housing complex at Évora, developed using sketching as a primary design tool, is presented through original documents from Siza's office along with photographs by Gabriele Basilico, Giovanni Chiaramonte, Roberto Collová and Jean-Louis Schoellkopf. A selection of prints from Martín Chambi's 1927 photographic series held in the CCA Collection is displayed as well as his panorama from a 1940 trip.

The exhibition is complemented by a selection of poetry books suggested by Álvaro Siza. Included is Pablo Neruda's Alturas de Macchu Picchu, the second part of his Canto General of 1945, from which the exhibition borrows its name.

Location: Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Montréal, Québec, Canada
Duration: till 22 April 2012
For more information HERE

Text editing: Xenia Saratsioti