Index

Page 1………………………..…..………………………………….Cover

Page 2……………………..………………...……………………….Index

Page 3…………………..……………………………………..Introduction

Pages 4-8…………………………….……Photography as Architecture

Pages 8-10………………………… Can architecture be photography?

Pages 10-11………………..………………...………………..Conclusion

Page 12………………..……………………………………...Bibliography

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 Introduction

Thinking of architecture in relationship to photography, for many people,

it’s a very standardized, a surficial relationship, were photography is the means
that depicts a building, an architectural creation. Architectural photography,
according to this theory, is what its title states and only that. But beyond this
mere explanation, there is an unclear and complex relationship between the two
arts.

“From the 20th century photography shared ideas with Architecture rather
than merely recording its every facet.”

Site work: architecture in photography since early modernism, Martin Caiger-Smith, 1991, p7

From the beginning of its use, the photograph had a powerful effect on
architecture, not only as a record or communication of architecture, but as an
aesthetic force as well. Photographers used the buildings as the raw material to
create something new, to express a new architecture. The old architecture was
the way to express their personal thoughts about architecture, through the art of
photography. But this created new, different opinions of how photography
perceives and creates architecture. Is it possible to clearly create buildings out of
the film? Do we create architectural space through this procedure, or is it just an
imitation, a mask of architectural space? And furthermore, can the opposite
happen? Can architecture become something similar to photography,
cinematography, a place that can record in a way its environment? This essay is
an attempt to deal with these questions and maybe give a possible answer, or at
least an approach that could make the relationship of architecture and
photography clearer.

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 Photography as Architecture

By beginning to discuss how the relationship between architecture and

photography started, we should remember from the early stages of photography
Frederic Evans (June 26, 1853). His attempt was at first sight truly photographic.
The main concern was to bring a hypothetical -and therefore unreal- atmospheric
interior quality of the building into the ‘reality’ of photography. His photographs
(fig1,2), carefully taken, preferably from interiors of temples, capture a conceptual
atmosphere that merely exists on the actual building.

(fig1) (fig2)

Frederic Evans interior photographs

His photographic work is truly remarkable, due to its realistic approach to

the theme combined carefully with an atmospheric feeling that gets away from
the current and the contemporary. His work is full of fascination about texture,
space, light and shade. The feeling his work gives is like creating idealistic
buildings for praising God. Through these photographs architecture is in a way
being recreated. The photograph is the way for the photographer to say his own
experience, his vision about how architecture should be, rather than clearly
depicting it. Here in this early stage of photography, Evans shows a pragmatic
image of these interiors, with a beautified, holy and dreamful sense.

There were photographers, though, that really recreated buildings,

designing something totally new, out of realily of the ages that had been
captured. Werner Manz (Cologne, 28 April 1902), a really influential architecture
photographer, was actually the first to clearly show that architecture can be
viewed or even redesigned, through a lens.

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 Werner Manz photograph (fig3)

This photograph (fig3) is of an old building, which has nothing to do with

the modernist ideas that were being emphasized this particular period. Manz
photographed the building in such a magnificent way that transformed it into a
modern architectural creation. The underexposure of the photograph, revealed
only the important geometrical shapes. Windows, doors and a simplified outline
of the whole building are being underlined. The rest information (ornamentation)
was abandoned, leaving a black colour of the hypothetical new material of the
façade and generating a new language of form. He worked in such a way with
many buildings to create a collection full of ‘transformed’ buildings, capturing a
new architecture with his lens in the 1930s.

Together with these early photographers, many others have tried with
many different approaches to combine and relate architecture with photography.
But all these attempts were oriented on to how photography can become
architecture, rather than really mixing these arts together. An interesting quote
about this relationship is the one from Eric de Mare that mentions:

“A photograph which is more than a record and makes an attempt by

selection, framing and composition to create a telling whole, is itself, if at a
remove, a kind of architectural work because it is a complete and therefore
beautiful structure – a structure built with the raw material of light”

Architectural Photography, Eric de Mare,1975, p4

De Mare here, clearly states that a photograph can become architecture

because those two arts are based in a very common factor, synthesis. And by
synthesis we mean the combination of two or more elements in order to form
something new. Whenever photography combines light, materials, form and
many others, it is considered to be an art that relates very closely with
architecture. Composition, as we can all understand, plays such an important

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role on those two related arts and therefore, it is a connection point of them that
we shouldn’t ignore.

According, also to the quote, we can clearly understand that, photography

is possible to become architecture sometimes. The clear art of photography
though, sometimes lacks this element of composition, following other rules and
forms. We should be really careful when we try to separate and decide on what is
what. In fact we should not even try to do it. Maybe this relationship is unclear for
a reason, because architecture and photography should interact.

But the true relationship of photography and architecture will become

clearer if we try to understand the work of a -rather experimenter than
photographer or artist- whose name is Lazlo Moholy-Nagy. His main interest,
through, was the experimentation in photography, and specifically photograms, to
create space, light and forms that cannot be repeated or created by any other
means1.

His work through photograms came after his theories. He was claiming
that instead of reproducing reality, the main issue for the artist is to create a new
one. He was searching for a new medium that could give him the effects that he
wanted, and he found it in the art of photography, were he clearly shows that he
is aiming for the imaginary, an experimental new spatial relationship with light.
He clearly states:

“the intention is not to make art out of photography in the old sense. We
must at all costs work toward reinstating the profound responsibility of the
photographer who, with the given photographic means, can create a work that
can not be created in the same way with any other means.”

Were is the photographic development heading?, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, 1932, p272

And, truly, together with his theory he started creating series of

photograms, using materials that, many of them are still unknown. Photograms
were the right technique for the right theory. No other technique created such
new relationship between space, form and light2. His early artwork shows this
attempt. But because his main interest was light as material, he concentrated in
photograms. There, canvas was only painted by light. Light was the subject and
the substance, the content and the form3.

The items being used are mainly translucent materials with interesting
forms or even liquids4. Therefore, the effect created is often really atmospheric in
a way that was never seen before. Light is also creating different grays that
gradually turning to black or white, and this is the success. These are the “light

1
Moholy-Nagy The Photograms, Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, Germany, 2009, p16
2
Moholy-Nagy The Photograms, Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, Germany, 2009, p16
3
Moholy-Nagy The Photograms, Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, Germany, 2009, p21
4
Moholy-Nagy The Photograms, Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, Germany, 2009, p28
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tracks” as he mentions, which make the light visible in his paintings. He, in a way,
describes with his own language, light and space.

“The photogram understood as a diagrammatic record of the motion of

light translated into black and white and gray values can lead to a gasp of new
types of spatial relationships and spatial rendering. The receding and advancing
values of the graduations, which are projections of ‘light tracks’, can be used for
space-that is, space time-articulation.”

Vision in Motion, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, 1946, p190

Forms are automatically being transformed into a three dimensional object

that is floating to a very unique space, and seems that is constantly moving.
Another interesting clue about most of his photograms is that there is no
orientation (fig2), no upper side or bottom, gravity is being defied5 and this
strengthens the message of the unique space (fig3) that Moholy-Nagy is trying to
succeed.

(fig4)
(fig5)

Lazlo Moholy-Nagy Photograms

But considering all these experiments that Moholy-Nagy did in

photography, and his theory about this lifetime work of his, we can clearly
understand of how related architecture and experimental photography can
become. These photograms trespass the main ideas of architecture. Moholy-
Nagy is creating architecture out of photography. Light becomes both the
painter's brush and the material to explain spatial creations that are clearly
abstract architecture compositions. Form, in some photograms rigid and clear,
becomes a very strong architectural interpretation. Sometimes, though,
transparent and unclear states an unknown, yet very experimental stage of
architecture itself.

5
Moholy-Nagy The Photograms, Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, Germany, 2009, p23
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 But we should be aware at this point that photography can create a new
language of architecture, but cannot clearly describe an existing architecture.
Adolf Loos successfully states that photography cannot interpret architecture.

“The problem for Loos is that Photography is not able to interpret architecture;
otherwise the latter could live in the former. When Loos writes, “Good
architecture can be described but not drawn”, and even “Good architecture can
be written. One can write the Parthenon,” he is acknowledging, well before
Benveniste, that the only semiotic system capable of interpreting another
semiotic system is language.”

Privacy and publicity-Modern Architecture as Mass Media, Beatriz Colomina, 2000, p43-44

So Moholy-Nagy’s photograms are really a work stating that photography

can become influential to architecture. Or even create a new language about
form and generally architectural space. The problem is that photography cannot
describe existing architecture. Photographs transform, imitate reality rather than
explaining it. And therefore, photography would give us a false interpretation of
the existing architecture.

Can architecture be photography?

The opposite now, to compare modern Architecture and how it can imitate
photography and generally media, can be understood if we become a bit more
precise. Buildings can be transformed, in a way, into photography. To become a
photograph it means to become exposed to the public. Photography is after all,
an art that was created for bringing publicity to the private. For years now,
photography is being used as a ‘news’ tool. Many architectural designs have
gained popularity through the publicity that photography gave to them. But, going
one step further, we should examine what Beatriz Colomina mentions in her book
“Privacy and publicity-Modern architecture as a mass media”:

“The building should be understood in the same terms as drawings,

photographs, writing, films and advertisements; not only because these are the
media in which more often we encounter it, but because the building is a
mechanism of representation in its own right.

Privacy and publicity-Modern Architecture as Mass Media, Beatriz Colomina, 2000, p13-14

8
 And by meaning that a building is “a mechanism of representation” first of
all we mean that the building is an object that can be seen and represent
something existing. It also means that buildings are being used in a very similar
way as the camera. Designing a building means to control the views through its
openings, the scenes (spaces) that are going to be visible to the public. Modern
architecture, therefore, has one common issue and it easy to be understood with
photography. One of architecture's main aim, which is similar to photography’s as
well, is to represent and bring whatever it needs to be seen, the one the
architect/photographer decides, to the public. But it should also be mentioned
that:

“The interior speaks the language of culture, the language of the experience of
things; the exterior speaks the language of civilization, that of information. The
interior is the other of exterior, in the same way as experience is the other of
information, culture the other of civilization. Thus on the other hand, public
buildings could calmly speak of what was going on behind their walls: “the
courthouse must make a threatening impression on the furtive criminal. The bank
building must say: ‘Here your money is securely safeguarded by honest people.’”
There is no contradiction between doing and informing.”
Privacy and publicity-Modern Architecture as Mass Media, Beatriz Colomina, p33

So the building is also a mechanism of representation because its exterior

yells it use in a way. Both interior and exterior spaces are saying something,
making a statement. Every building, if it is a successful design, should speak for
its use. The above example of Beatriz Colomina is a very successful one, making
us understand how a building can become “a mechanism of representation”,
which can also be a photographer’s camera. So it is very clear that architecture
and photography can have a very close relationship, in a way.

And furthermore, this is the idea of architecture. To be inside the building,

inside the walls is to be in this ‘device’. To be outside of this ‘device’ is to be
seen, by the windows, doors and generally from the openings of the building6. So
the building itself hides an idea of representation, showing activities, controlling
views, making the private, public. And this is totally reminding us the device that
takes photographs. All the compositions, the careful views, and this
selectiveness of what to include and what not in the picture, is the art of
photography itself. One of the most recognizable photographers, Henri-Cartier
Bresson, successfully stated that getting into the camera, excluding yourself from
the environment, like you don’t exist there, is when the art of photography
happens7.

6
Privacy and publicity-Modern Architecture as Mass Media, Massachusetts 1994, Beatriz
Colomina, p7

7
The Decisive Moment, New York 1952, Henri Cartier-Bresson, p3
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 Here, with Bresson’s words, we can understand how important for
photography space is. To get into the camera, is to exclude yourself from the
outside world and enter the interior of the camera and think of composition and
framing. And this can be very similar with what we mentioned above; architecture
and generally buildings in a way are framing and controlling the world they are
placed into. According to these thoughts and comparing it in relationship with
photographers’ words about photography, we start understanding under which
terms architecture can become photography. The building can actually itself
become a ‘device’ with similar behavior as the photographers’ camera. An object
to observe and to be observed, frame and even record our world.

Conclusion

But, summing up and going back to where we have started, thinking a bit
more about photography and its application to architecture, we should encounter
that the photograph is a powerful tool not to be underestimated. From the
invention of it, photography played a very important role upon the development of
both the design process but even the art of architecture itself. Even the process
of design has changed as to take careful photographs, can now be compared the
same as taking careful notes. It is again Henri-Cartier Bresson who stated that:

“The chief requirement is to be fully involved in this reality which we

delineate in the viewfinder. The camera is to some extent a sort of notebook for
recording sketches made in time and space, but it is also an admirable
instrument for seizing upon life as it presents itself.”

The World of Henri Cartier-Bresson,Henri Cartier-Bresson, p27

Going now again to the thoughts of, in what extend, architecture can be
considered photography, which is indeed a really radical idea, it can really teach
us a lot. Thinking about buildings as media, photography or cinematography, as
exposure of architecture to the public, can help the architects of the future
develop further ideas of such thoughts into designs. But it is also a very good
idea for each designer to know well about photography and its use, because as
Adolf Loos mentions:

“There are designers who make interiors not so that people can live well
in them, but so that they look good in photographs. These are the so-called
graphic interiors, whose mechanical assemblies of lines of shadows and light
best suit another mechanical contrivance: the camera obscura.”
Adolph Loos, “Regarding Economy”, p139-140

Analyzing this quote of Loos we can understand how important it is to

know about photography. Sometimes it is a tool that can drift designers into
making interiors so that they only look good in the eye, rather than designing for
the humans and their ease of living in a space. A good designer being aware of

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this particular delusion of the camera, being aware about both the art of
photography and architecture will be more confident on designing according to
the human, rather according to the pages of a magazine, in order for his design
just to look beautiful. Designing for humans after all, is what makes architecture
so special and different from all the other arts and therefore this should be the
main goal for each architect.

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 Bibliography

- Beatriz Colomina, Privacy and publicity-Modern

architecture as Mass Media, The MIT Press,
Massachusetts, 1994
- Liz Wells, Photography : A critical introduction,
Routledge, London, 2004
- Robert Elwall, Photography takes command, RIBA
Heinz Gallery, London, 1994
- Eric de Mare, Architectural photography, B.T. Batsford
Limited, London, 1975
- Michael Harris, Architectural Photography, Butterworth-
Heinemann Ltd, Oxford, 1995
- Renate Heyne/ Floris Neususs/ Hattula Moholy-Nagy,
Moholy-Nagy The Photograms, Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern,
2009
- Martin Caiger-Smith/David Chandler, Site work:
architecture in photography since early modernism,
Photographers' Gallery, London, 1991
- Henri Cartier-Bresson, The Decisive Moment, Simon &
Schuster in collaboration with Éditions Verve of Paris,
New York, 1952
- Henri Cartier-Bresson, The world of Henri Cartier
Bresson, Viking Press, Michigan, 1968

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