Karl Lagerfeld: Tadao Ando-Vitra House

by Karl Lagerfeld (Photographer), Gerhard Steidl (Editor), Eric Pfrunder (Editor)

"Architecture, which acquires tranquillity and balance thanks to geometric order, obtains dynamism thanks to natural phenomena and human movements."

Architect Tadao Ando's statement serves as an introduction to the architecture photographs in this small-format book. Ando designed the Vitra conference pavilion in Well am Rhein.

It's not the first time that Karl Lagerfeld has photographed architecture; the results in this book are truly impressive. It seems very difficult to transform Ando's architectural principles into a photographic form. But Lagerfeld transfers the basic ideas of Ando's architecture into his own photography. On one hand his pictures present us several geometrical forms and details as staircases or doorways. On the other hand we can find photographic views of the whole building and its environment. Lagerfeld has found a sensitive language showing us the characteristics of Ando's specific architecture.

72 pages, Paperback

First published August 2, 1999

About the author

Karl Otto Lagerfeld was a German creative director, artist, photographer and caricaturist who lived in Paris. He was known as the creative director of the French luxury fashion house Chanel (from 1983 until his death), as well as creative director of the Italian fur and leather goods fashion house Fendi and his own eponymous fashion label. Over the decades, he collaborated on a variety of fashion and art-related projects.

Source: wikipedia