Aesthetically speaking, rooftops are not generally much to look at. Compared to other architectural elements, roofs are somewhat ignored, especially in comparison to the ornamental flourishes found on windows and doors, and the attention to detail of many beautifully painted homes. Still the roof soldiers on, fulfilling its mundane but vital charge of bearing the brunt of nature's abuse. But as with everything seen through the lens, the roof becomes more when photographed. Elevated from its usually utilitarian status, the roof photographed becomes something to be considered not only visually but also culturally, as the images shed some light on materials, design choices, and economic conditions of cultures around the world.

Philippe Jauzac's current exhibition at Image City Photography gallery is exactly what it is titled: Rooftops of the World. It includes images of roofs from China, Niger, Spain, the photographer's native France, and other locales. Currently a neurologist and professor of biochemistry at the University of Caen, Jauzac made the photographs of rooftops during his world travels and has collected images from more than 11 countries on four continents. Jauzac sees his work as not only a study of the lines and colors of rooftops, but as a method of preserving both architecture and culture. "...Architecture and roof shapes are highly representative of cultural choices," he writes in a statement accompanying the exhibition. "To me, the rooftops are so symbolic. They reflect these cultural differences and yet convey the universality of mankind."

The majority of Jauzac's images are concerned with the formal elements of rooftop design and result in abstract compositions rich with jagged patterns of shingles and tiles. Photos of French cathedral rooftops feature a rigid, repeating grid of clay-colored tiles meeting the weathered gray stone of an ornate buttress, thus compressing hundreds of years of architecture into a single frame. Another striking image from France captures an Alsatian rooftop composed of brightly colored green and purple tiles arranged in a deliberate crisscross pattern. Interrupting the order, however, is a small window jutting out from the roof as if it were poking its head up from beneath the surface of a sea of shingles. It may be the best composed shot of the lot, as it gives us both the optical treat of rich color and pattern and the reminder of the roof as an essential part of our lived-in spaces.

Unfortunately, the most compelling of Jauzac's images are the style of which he's chosen to exhibit the fewest examples. While the close-cropped and highly compressed images (achieved through the use of a telephoto lens) reduce the world's rooftops to pleasant compositions of which Mondrian might approve, a greater sense of place and cultural vitality are to be found in the images where Jauzac steps back and takes a wider view of the scene. The dense urban landscape visible in his "#136 Seville (Spain)" also features the photographic trope of reducing recognizable scenes to abstraction; however, Jauzac chooses to widen the view. We encounter more buttresses in the view's foreground; beyond them lies a tight maze of structures, likely a haphazard mix of homes and businesses. Further still within the frame we see an almond-shaped sporting arena whose gentle form cuts through the crazy quilt of the city. The image transcends the simple visual pleasure of Jauzac's tighter compositions by abandoning the fascination with form for a contextual view of the city as a sea of many rooftops, and in turn many people, cultures, and architectural styles.

Also more stimulating as a record of cultural richness is an image of a Moroccan rooftop titled "#188 Fes (Morocco)." The frame is full of blocky structures fitting together like three-dimensional Tetris pieces that allow for walls to rise above some rooftops. This image shows a figure hanging wet laundry from a wall accessed from the rooftop, something that is both culturally and architecturally intriguing. Again, Jauzac achieves an eye-pleasing combination of line, color, and shape, but also gives us a human reference point that inspires thought and interest in the different ways the world's roofs are both created and used.

The attempt to accurately represent culture with a camera has long been a noble goal of photography, but critics and historians have indefatigably pointed out the inherent problems of this aim. While the camera --- and Philippe Jauzac --- succeeds in bringing us interesting snippets of reality in other lands, it's asking too much of lens and light to show us "the universality of mankind." Instead, let it suffice that the camera presents us with curious bits and pieces of our world; incomplete but still capable of stimulating the eye and mind. Philippe Jauzac's photographs accomplish this simpler goal and are best enjoyed as one man's well-composed views of the textures and patterns rooftops of the world.

Rooftops of the World | through February 25 | Image City Photography Gallery, 722 University Avenue | Wednesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sunday noon-4 p.m. | 271-2540, www.imagecityphotographygallery.com