photography    theory    about    contact   ︎   ENG | DE







Architectural Photography as Medium of (Re)presentation and Construction of Architecture


2019




+

ABSTRACT

The present book discusses the role and the meaning of architectural photography in architecture. The aim is to investigate and outline the complex relationship between architecture and architectural photography in order to demonstrate a subtle, but important joint between them. In the text, I call it architectural joint, which is actually the idea itself – an idea that has the power to shape our understanding of architecture and to open new themes for its discussion and material production.

The central hypothesis and the starting point of this work is that architectural photography is not simply a representation of some built, concrete architecture, which functions as photography’s referent, rather, insofar as it is successful, it works also as a medium of architecture’s presentation; it can render architecture present. Indeed, with the use of techniques that are immanent to the photographic medium, architectural photography can achieve even more: it can become the medium of architectural construction. Through examples of work of some well-known photographers and my own photographic series I explored, explained and argued three aspects of constructing the architectural joint: photography as a manipulation of reality, photography as a construction of architecture and photography as an emanation of directness. At the same time, I  tried to define the possibilities of photographer’s practice nowadays, which at first glance mistakenly seems to offer a limited universe of ideas and images that are constantly repeating, but never break through or show things in their openness or possible redefinition.

Key words: architecture, architectural photography, (re)presentation, construction, architectural joint




ana skobe, 2024 © All rights reserved.