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Into Silent Skies #1. Images of Sydney Opera House Roof Shells
Into Silent Skies #4. Images of Sydney Opera House Roof Shells
Into Silent Skies #5. Images of Sydney Opera House Roof Shells
Photography © Quintin Lake, 2010
BUY PRINTS/LICENSE more abstract images of the Sydney Opera House roof here
The roof is constructed of a series of precast concrete “shells”. The roofs of the Sydney Opera House are covered in a subtle chevron pattern with 1,056,006 glossy white- and matte-cream-colored Swedish-made glazed ceramic tiles from Höganäs AB though, from a distance, the shells appear a uniform white.
Abstract image of the tiled fan pattern on two shells of the roof of Sydney Opera House
Abstract image of the tiled fan pattern of the roof Sydney Opera
Abstract image of the tiled fan pattern of the roof Sydney Opera
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Photography © Quintin Lake, 2010
BridgeClimb participants and guide on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney, Australia
BUY/LICENSE more Sydney harbour bridge structure images here
Photography © Quintin Lake, 2010
BUY/LICENSE more SS Great Britain images here
Bow of the SS Great Britain in the Great Western Dockyard, Bristol
Unique Design by Brunel
SS Great Britain was an advanced passenger steamship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel for the Great Western Steamship Company’s transatlantic service between Bristol and New York. While other ships had previously been built of iron or equipped with a screw propeller, Great Britain was the first to combine these features in a large ocean-going ship.
Glass roof covered with water creating an air seal around the hull seen from below
Stranded and Scuttled
When launched in 1843, Great Britain was by far the largest vessel afloat. However, her protracted construction and high cost had left her owners in a difficult financial position, and they were forced out of business in 1846 after the ship was stranded by a navigational error.
Sold for salvage and repaired, Great Britain carried thousands of immigrants to Australia until converted to sail in 1881. Three years later, the vessel was retired to the Falkland Islands where she was utilised as a warehouse, quarantine ship and coal hulk until scuttled in 1937.
Hull and glass air seal seen from ground level
Return to Bristol
In 1970, Great Britain was returned to the Bristol dry dock where she was first built. Now listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, Core Collection, the vessel is an award-winning visitor attraction and museum ship in Bristol Harbour, with between 150,000-170,000 visitors annually.
After Recovery she then spent two weeks in the Cumberland Basin, until a high enough tide occurred that would get her back through the locks to Bristol’s Floating Harbour, back to her birthplace, the dry dock in the Great Western Dockyard in which she had been built (now a grade II* listed building, it had been disused since bomb damage during World War II).
Public walkway next to the hull in the Great Western Dockyard dry dock
Restoration and design of the glass air seal around the hull
The original intent was to restore her to her 1843 state. However, the philosophy of the project changed in recent years and the conservation of all surviving pre-1970 material became the aim.
By 1998, an extensive survey discovered that the hull was continuing to corrode in the humid atmosphere of the dock and estimates gave her 20 years before she corroded away. Extensive conservation work began which culminated in the installation of a glass plate across the dry dock at the level of her water line, with two dehumidifiers, keeping the space beneath at 22% relative humidity, sufficiently dry to preserve the surviving material of the hull. This was completed, the ship was “re-launched” in July 2005, and visitor access to the dry dock was restored.
Detail of damage on the original riveted plates on the hull
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Photography © Quintin Lake, 2009
Shine through, shine out I
Detail of Lincoln Cathedral East window showing The Creation and Redemption of Man. Stained glass by Ward and Nixon, 1855. Lincoln, UK, 2004
Shine through, shine out II
Neon advertising lights above Nanjing East Road. Shanghai, China, 2007
Buy prints and usage rights of these diptych images here which are featured in my architectural photography book, Drawing Parallels, Architecture Observed
Text & Photography © Quintin Lake, 2010
“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
Click on image to enlarge or download Print Res (300dpi) PDF of this spread here
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
Click on image to enlarge or download Print Res (300dpi) PDF of this spread here
Extract from my architectural photography book, Drawing Parallels, Architecture Observed
Text & Photography © Quintin Lake, 2009
German design agency Anzinger Wüschner Rasp selected Quintin Lake’s architectural texture photographs from Dubrovnik, Shanghai, Seoul and Kyoto to illustrate the international nature of the business of Hannover Re, one of the leading reinsurance groups in the world, in their 2008 Annual Report. The previous year’s annual report featured photographs by Yann Arthus-Bertrand.
Download a PDF of the report in German here and English here.
Facade of Galleria Fashion Store, Seoul, South Korea
Lights above Nanjing East Road, Shanghai, China
Detail Roof tiles Dubrovnik, Croatia
Bamboo fence next to Nijo Castle, Kyoto, Japan
View the photographs on the Hanover re website here.
Photography © Quintin Lake, 2009
Walthamstow, London
His and hers door knockers, Yazd, Iran. The masculine door knocker is rigid and heavy that makes a strong sound. People inside the house wil be informed that a man is behind the door. The feminine door knocker is curly and ring like and makes a lighter sound. It informs the people inside the house that a woman is behind the door. This system is in place due to the Islamic custom that women should be private from men except their intimate ones.
Gates from the cloisters of All Souls college cast shadows on Radcliffe Square, Oxford. This might be a rare moment when the the quod: that great British architectural invention of exclusion, offers a pubic gesture. All souls is a graduate college and is made up of top finalists from the rest of the university from which two are chosen each year.
