One of Arthur Ericksons slides from travels to the Kinkaku-ji Temple, Kyoto, ca. 1961. Arthur Erickson fonds, CCA. Gift of the Erickson Family Emily Erickson McCullum and Christopher EricksonUpon arriving in Tokyo in 1961, Arthur Erickson purchased a Mamiya Flex C2 twin lens reflex camera and a Sekonic light meter, instruments which became central to his study of Japanese buildings and landscapes. For Erickson, photography offered a crucial tool for developing and later communicating many of his key ideas about architectures interplay with landscape.Currently on view at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, Being There presents photographs taken by Erickson during his travels in Japan and Southeast Asia, as well as an earlier journey around the Mediterranean in 195052. Curated by McGill professor David Covo with the CCAs Laura Aparicio Llorente, Being There helps us to understand how Erickson travelled: both what he sought and what he found in his formative journeys. Erickson understood Japanese architecture supremely well before his travels, but he also knew he could not truly grasp what made it unique without a prolonged study of the site itself.For Covo, the camera neither distanced nor objectified Ericksons experiences. Instead, it brought the young architect into closer contact with the places he visited. Moving the Mamiya to and fro as he framed his two-and-a-half-inch square images, together with the need to bring the light meter close to those surfaces he wished to capture, produced a ritual which structured Ericksons site visits and allowed him to better assimilate learnings from them. Buildings are always shown as fully integrated with their natural settings; in other cases, the traces of human endeavour (such as the footpaths in a photograph taken at the Katsura Imperial Villa) register as unobtrusive presences within their landscapes. These imagesmany of which were rediscovered by Covo in collections across Canadaare presented in a series of mesmeric slideshows, in which the architects vision flickers before the visitors eyes.Given Ericksons youthful talent as a painter, it is surprising that the exhibition features few drawings. In fact, it is uncertain if Erickson sketched much during his travels. However, two sketches showing villages in the south of France encapsulate the same compositional ideas as Ericksons photographs. In both, buildings recede into the distance, while landscape fills the foreground. Just as Erickson did not avail himself of a zoom lens for his photographs, his sketching eye gazed forward without any urge to unduly crop surroundings.While ostensibly a photography exhibition, the shows focus is equally textual. Covo has poured over Ericksons voluminous correspondence (nearly 25,000 words) sent from Japan to his parents and to McGill professor Gordon Webber, and selected key letters for display. These missives formed the basis of Ericksons future lectures and articles on Japanese architecture. Describing Katsura to Webber, Erickson claimed it to be misread, misrepresented in practically every coverage of itso I shall do it again and contribute to the damage that publicity has brought to Japanese architecture. Whether or not Ericksons photographs truly captured the buildings they depict, Being There offers us a privileged window into the architects own creative imagination.Architectural historian Peter Sealy is an Assistant Professor at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. Being There: Photography in Arthur Ericksons Travel Diaries is on display at the CCA until March 16, 2025.As appeared in theFebruary 2025issue of Canadian Architect magazineThe post Exhibition Review: Being There appeared first on Canadian Architect.