“Sometimes I enjoy just photographing the surface because I think it can be as revealing as going to the heart of the matter.”
Annie Leibovitz

Architecture has a texture. Whilst it is a commonplace that the very materials of buildings, both ancient and modern, contribute to their character, looking again at, or observing, the very fabric and substance of this aspect of the art, brings to life almost another art form in itself. For the photographer these architectural building blocks, from the smoothest marble to the roughest stone felt underfoot, from intricately glazed tiles to roughly cut timber in an ancient temple, merge into images where an alternative aesthetic is seen, beyond the functional or the decorative. The photographer can also register the elusive interplay of light with materials. It is in the bringing together of these moments, whether it is the natural vernacular of an ancient or traditional landscape with the neon radiance of a modern Chinese office block, that provides truly novel commentary.

Pixilated skin

left: Glass disks on the façade of Galleria Fashion Store treated with iridescent foil on a metal support structure. A back-lit animated colour scheme ensures that the façade appears to be always changing by day and night. Architect: UN Studio. Engineer: Arup. Seoul, South Korea, 2007

right: Façade of Birmingham’s Selfridges store at night. The skin consists of thousands of spun, anodised aluminium discs that reflect the surrounding city, set against a blue curved, sprayed concrete wall. Architect: Future Systems. Engineer: Arup. Birmingham, UK, 2007

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Responsive skin

left: Detail of aluminium sunscreens on the façade of the Esplanade, Theatres on the Bay, Singapore. The shields are set to be more open or closed depending on the angle at which the sun hits them, affording the glass façades protection from direct
sunlight without limiting the view. Many Singaporeans casually refer to the Esplanade as the Durian because of its resemblance to the tropical fruit. Architect: Michael Wilford & Partners & DP Architects Singapore. Singapore, 2003

right: Timber roof tiles of an alpine hay barn, South Tyrol, Italy, 2002

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“I often think of that rare fulfilling joy when you are in the presence of some wonderful alignment of events. Where the light, the colour, the shapes, and the balance all interlock so perfectly that I feel truly overwhelmed by the wonder of it.”
Charlie Waite

If architecture is the act of making shapes, from a detail to an overall impression, part of the art of photography is seeing and registering the wealth of changing forms and patterns that are created by the harmony and clash of buildings with their environments. The art of the contemporary photographer allows for the fine precision of focus on unnoticed, forgotten and ignored details which exist almost as structures in their own right. A doorway, a ceiling, a corner or a façade can come to life through the recognition of a composition. There are new forms, almost new works, created by the erosion of time. Decay and neglect fashion something fresh, whilst a fragment of a former whole achieves a revelatory beauty in its own right. This gallery of experience is new for each generation. The contemporary photographer not only notices and composes, but he can assemble to make unique modern statements.

Buildings without precedent

left:Wind towers (Badgir) next to a building which acts as a refrigerator to store food and Zoroastrian Tower of Silence (Dakhmeh). Yazd, Iran 2007

right: Clean water flows into the Thames from the northern outfall of Beckton Sewage TreatmentWorks. Sewage from 3.4 million Londoners is treated on site every day. Barking Creek Tidal Barrier, which resembles a giant guillotine, was built over four years and completed in 1983. It is about 60m high, which allows shipping to reach the Town Quay in Barking further upstream. The barrier crosses the Barking Creek reach of the River Roding at its confluence with the Thames. London, UK, 2003

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Convergence

left: Underside of the stage of the theatre in the inner garden, Yuyuan Garden, originally built in the 14th year of the Guangxu reign in the Qing Dynasty, 1888. The old stage underwent extensive rebuilding in 2005. Shanghai, China, 2007

right: Ashley Building, School of Humanities, University of Birmingham. Architect: Howell, Killick, Partridge & Amis. Refurbished by Berman Guedes Stretton, Birmingham. UK, 2006

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