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Image Building: How Photography Transforms Architecture

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This generously illustrated examination of architectural photography from the 1930s to the present shows how the medium has helped shape familiar views of iconic buildings.

Photography has both manipulated and bolstered our appreciation of modern architecture. With beautiful photographs of private and public buildings by Julius Shulman, Candida Höfer, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, and others, this book examines the central and active role that photography plays in defining and perpetuating the iconic nature of buildings and places. This volume shows how different photographers represent the same building, offers commentaries on the "American dream," and explores changes in commercial architectural photography. Placing decades-old images alongside modern ones, Image Building depicts the idea of the comfortable middle-class home and the construction of suburbia as an ironic ideal. It presents the ways that public spaces such as libraries, museums, theaters, and office buildings are experienced differently as photographers highlight the social, cultural, psychological, and aesthetic conditions to reveal the layered meanings of place and identity. Looking at how photography shapes and frames our understanding of architecture, this volume offers thought-provoking points of view through an exploration of social and cultural issues.
Published in association with the Parrish Art Museum

144 pages, Paperback

Published March 16, 2018

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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Profile Image for john lu.
25 reviews
January 31, 2024
Image Building shows a collection of photos that captures architecture throughout the history of photography. Both contemporary fields that build upon its history, they've come to influence the designs and composition of buildings. Understanding how space is experienced, documented, and remembered are all feelings that can be evoked from a photo. A great read.
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