The desire for neutrality in Modernist inspired architecture contradicts with the desire for expression, distinction, brand identity and individuality is the thesis that is being explored in this exhibition at the
Le Centre d'exposition de l'Université de Montreal. The exhibition examines three buildings, pictured here, by
Éric Gauthier, a local architect who has designed many cultural institutions in Canada.
The exhibition explores the tensions that an aesthetically neutral building creates within its complex context, and argues that it is not an act of omission by the architect to seek neutrality but rather a deliberate strategy that seeks to hold and manipulate those tensions. This, the exhibition argues, is not a neutral position as the Postmodernist critique might argue, but a deliberate social and aesthetic act.
