HARVARD TO CELEBRATE LEGACY OF ARCHITECT, URBAN PLANNER, AND EDUCATOR JOSEP LLUÍS SERT

Two Sert Exhibitions Showcasing More than 275 Objects-Including Sketches, Drawings, Photographs, Plans, and Archival Material-and Related Symposium at Harvard this Fall

CAMBRIDGE, MA (September 4, 2003) - Celebrating the influential work of architect, urban planner, and educator Josep Lluís Sert, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design will present the exhibition Josep Lluís Sert: The Architect of Urban Design, 1953-1969 from October 6 to November 19, 2003. Sert played a leading role in defining urban design education and practice. He created the first professional degree program in urban design at Harvard in 1959 and shaped the profession through projects in the Boston area and beyond. Marking the 50th anniversary of Sert's appointment as Dean of the Graduate School of Design, Josep Lluís Sert: The Architect of Urban Design, 1953-1969 will feature more than 200 objects-including sketches, drawings, plans, manuscript material, models, and photographs-exploring the concept of urban design as introduced by Sert during his deanship at Harvard. Much of the archival material in the exhibition will be on public display for the first time.

"During the 1950s and 60s, urban design came to represent the physical shaping of cities through localized interventions rather than sweeping master proposals, and was increasingly characterized by the collaboration of professionals from a range of design backgrounds, and the arts," says Mary Daniels, Librarian, Special Collections, Harvard Design School, and one of the curators of the exhibition. "Sert was instrumental in bringing together architects, landscape architects, and planners to engage in the formation of the city. Through his teaching and practice, he fostered the integration of the design disciplines at all scales of the urban framework, and the creation of new 'hearts of the city' that would become unique centers of collective vitality."

About the Exhibition
Josep Lluís Sert: The Architect of Urban Design, 1953-1969 will document Sert's work as a planner in Latin America as well as his subsequent work as architect and urban designer in the United States. Commissions and projects highlighted will include the master plans for Bogotá and Havana, several significant buildings designed for Harvard University (Peabody Terrace, Holyoke Center, and the Science Center), as well as design work undertaken at Boston University and New York's Roosevelt Island. Two unrealized projects-the master plans for Boston's South Station and downtown Worcester, Massachusetts-will also be on view. Sert's influence as an educator will be documented through materials related to his role in the creation of the first professional degree program in urban design. The exhibition will also feature archival materials related to the design of Sert's home in Cambridge, which expressed, in a domestic setting, many of the concepts incorporated in his work on a larger scale. These materials will provide a link to an associated exhibition mounted in the Harvard University Art Museums' Sert Gallery, Josep Lluís Sert; Architect to the Arts II (see below).

Josep Lluís Sert: The Architect of Urban Design, 1953-1969 is co-organized by Mary Daniels, Librarian, Special Collections, and Inés Zalduendo, Project Archivist, Special Collections, Frances Loeb Library, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, in consultation with Professors Jorge Silvetti and Hashim Sarkis.

A symposium on the same topic, bringing together major scholars studying Sert's work, will take place at the Harvard Design School on October 24 and 25, 2003.

About the Associated Exhibition Josep Lluís Sert: Architect to the Arts II
An associated exhibition exploring Sert's involvement with the arts, Josep Lluís Sert: Architect to the Arts II, will be on view at the Harvard University Art Museums' Sert Gallery at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts from September 13 to December 14, 2003. The exhibition will showcase 75 items drawn from the Special Collections Department of the Frances Loeb Library, including sketches, plans, photographs, and manuscripts that document Sert's arts-related architectural commissions-the Spanish Pavilion of 1937, the Miró Studio, the Maeght Foundation, and the Miró Foundation. These archival materials will be complemented by artworks by Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Fernand Léger, and Le Corbusier that were once part of Sert's private collection, now held by the Harvard University Art Museums and the Harvard Design School thanks to Sert's generous gift. The exhibition thus offers a glimpse of the "personal museum" that Sert assembled in his house in Cambridge, a museum that reflected both his aesthetic philosophy and his lasting friendships with some of the major figures of modern art. Many archival holdings and art works in the exhibition are on public display for the first time.

Josep Lluís Sert: Architect to the Arts II is organized by the Harvard Design School in association with the Harvard University Art Museums. The curators are Mary Daniels, Librarian, Special Collections, and Inés Zalduendo, Project Archivist, Special Collections, Frances Loeb Library, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, with assistance from Harry Cooper, Curator of Modern Art, Harvard University Art Museums. This exhibition is the successor to an earlier show mounted at Harvard's Carpenter Center in 1978, which marked the 25th anniversary of Sert's tenure as Dean.

Josep Lluís Sert
Josep Lluís Sert (1902-1983) received a degree in architecture in 1929 from the Escuela Superior de Arquitectura in his native Barcelona. In the subsequent decade, he was among the leading young Spanish architects, active in both CIAM (International Congress for Modern Architecture) and GATEPAC (Grupo de Arquitectos y Técnicos Españoles para el Progreso de la Arquitectura Contemporánea). Sert gained an international reputation with his design for the Spanish Pavilion built for the 1937 International Exposition in Paris. Immigrating to the United States in 1941, he was from 1941 to 1958 a founding partner in Town Planning Associates, a design firm specializing in both architectural and urban design projects, with a particular focus on Latin America.

In 1958 Sert opened, with Huson Jackson and Ronald Gourley, Sert, Jackson & Gourley in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the firm's work included private residences, museums, and numerous large-scale commercial and educational commissions in the United States and abroad. The firm produced several buildings for Harvard University, including the Science Center, Holyoke Center, and Peabody Terrace. Sert served as Dean of Harvard's Graduate School of Design from 1953 until 1969. During his extraordinarily vibrant and productive tenure, he oversaw a variety of innovations in the curriculum, including the establishment of the first formal professional degree program in Urban Design.

Harvard Design School
The Harvard Design School is the nation's leading center for education, information, research, and technical expertise on architecture and the built environment. Its flagship graduate programs provide masters and doctoral degree programs in three integrated departments: Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning and Design. Established in 1936, the School educates a broad range of design professionals, policy makers, government officials, business leaders, and the public about design and its impact on our lives through an array of conferences, exhibitions, professional development and executive education programs, and research activities. Further information is available at 617-496-1300 or on the Harvard Design School web site at www.gsd.harvard.edu/events.

Harvard University Art Museums
The Harvard University Art Museums is one of the world's leading art institutions with more than 160,000 objects in the collection ranging in date from ancient times to the present. It is distinguished by the range and depth of its collections, its groundbreaking exhibitions, and the original research of its staff. For more than a century, it has been the nation's premier training ground for museum professionals and scholars and is renowned for its seminal and ongoing role in the development of the discipline of art history in this country. More information is available at 617-495-9400 or on the Internet at www.artmuseums.harvard.edu.

Both exhibitions are free to the public.

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For further information or visuals, media should contact:

Dan Borelli
Harvard Design School
tel 617-496-0057; fax 617-496-3637
dborelli@gsd.harvard.edu

or

Anja Wodsak / Deborah Kirschner
Resnicow Schroeder Associates
tel 212-671-5165 / 212-671-5178; fax 212-595-8354
awodsak@resnicowschroeder.com
dkirschner@resnicowschroeder.com