#Industry News
The fleeting moment of architecture
Amy Croft, curator of the Sto Werkstatt in London and of the “Building Images” exhibition, explains the idea behind the project – celebrating the creative and artistic eye of the architectural photographer.
Night-time activity in the housing of the EPFL Quartier Nord in Ecublens, Switzerland, designed by Richter Dahl Rocha & Associés, the efficient arrangement of the De Rotterdam tower, the vertical city on the Maas river designed by OMA and the still water of the Gold Coast Aquatic Centre in Queensland, Australia just before a dive. All showcase exactly what the 20 photographs in “Building Images” at the Sto Werkstatt in London seek to capture: the fleeting moment of architecture.
“Photography has the unique ability to explore and represent architectural space and form”, explains Amy Croft, curator of the east London gallery. She believes that the power of photography lies in its being able to express “fundamental architectural concepts.”
The pictures displayed are winning shots from the third edition of the arcaid images architectural photography awards (2015), spread over four categories: buildings in use, exteriors, interiors and sense of place.
Francesca Esposito: What lies behind “Building Images”?
Amy Croft: We wanted to celebrate the creative and artistic eye of the architectural photographer, partly because there is a proliferation of pictures on the Internet that are often without credits and become anonymous. That is why we have created a light and dynamic visual experience for the exhibition design of the third “Building Images”.
Francesca Esposito: What are the selection criteria for an architectural photograph?
Amy Croft: In the pre-selection process, the jury disregarded the architecture and judged mainly on the basis of parameters such as composition, light, sense of place, atmosphere and use of scale. For the World Architecture Festival 2015, the jury comprised Fabrizio Barozzi, Alberto Veiga, Amy Croft, Katy Harris, Nick Hufton, Allan Crow, Ian Moore, Clifford Pearson and Christine Murray.
Francesca Esposito: What is it about architecture that a photograph can capture?
Amy Croft: The challenge for the photographer is to transform the details of a building at a certain moment, so the textures, colours, plays of light, day, night and location, into the story of a specific space. We see the photographer’s personal experience of that space.
Francesca Esposito: What is the relationship between person and architecture?
Amy Croft: I don’t think architecture can exist without people and it’s comforting to see that every photograph chosen and exhibited features a live human presence. This relates not only to a figure in itself but also to the time dimension of the pictures – from traffic in front of a skyscraper to chance reflections on glass. This allows everyone, as spectators, to inhabit the architecture rather than separating the building or urban environment from the human context.
Francesca Esposito: Which photographers were involved?
Amy Croft: The exhibition features the world’s most famous architectural photographers including the winner Fernando Guerra but also Iñigo Bujedo Aguirre, DoubleSpace (Amanda Large & Younes Bounhar), Christopher Frederick Jones, Laurian Ghinoiu, Mark Gorton, Ryan Koopmans, Lingfei Tan + Canzone Han, Mads Mogensen, Tom Roe, Ieva Saudargaitė, Su Shengliang, Grant Smith and Jeremie Souteyrat.
