Architectural expressions at the seats of government in CHANDIGARH by Le Corbusier and BRASÍLIA by Oscar Niemeyer a reVision in black-and-white 2013/2014

Why does a visual artist, as Austrian photographer Georg Salner, make a photographic ‘excursion’ to Le Corbusier (and Pierre Jeanneret) in Chandigarh and to Oscar Niemeyer in Brasília (Niterói and Rio de Janeiro)? Of all grandmasters, Le Corbusier and Niemeyer are the only ones to have infused entire capitals with their ideas and endowed them with key buildings. They were all ‘ideal types’ of designers: innovative, influential and motivated by a huge commitment to a world civilization whose – at times utopian – approaches were not always able to flourish in every sense. Indeed, they remained lone figures with many outstanding comrades in arms and successors.

Georg Salner, *1958 in Galtür, Austria. Lives and works in Vienna.