Henri Labrouste "Structure Brought to Light"

The Museum of Modern Art

poster for Henri Labrouste "Structure Brought to Light"

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Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light will be the first solo exhibition of Labrouste’s work in the United States and will highlight his work as a milestone in the modern evolution of architecture. The exhibition includes over 200 works, from original drawings—many of them watercolors of haunting beauty and precision—to vintage and modern photographs, films, architectural models, and fragments. Labrouste made an invaluable impact on 19th-century architecture in the exploration of new paradigms of space, materials, and luminosity in places of great public assembly. His two magisterial glass and iron reading rooms in Paris, the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève (1838–50) and the Bibliothèque nationale (1859­–75), gave form to the idea of the modern library as a temple of knowledge and as a space for contemplation. Labrouste also sought a redefinition of architecture by introducing new materials and new building technologies into the existing repertory. His spaces are at once overwhelming in the daring modernity of their exposed metal frameworks, lightweight walls, and brightness, and immersive in their timelessness.

Works by an international array of architects, such as Labrouste’s pupils in France, Spain, the Netherlands, Peru, and the United States, and projects with more distant resonances by architects such as Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Richard Rogers, will also be featured. The exhibition is organized by Barry Bergdoll, The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art.

[Image: Henri Labrouste "Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, View of the reading room" (1854–75) © Georges Fessy]

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from March 10, 2013 to June 24, 2013

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