photographing an idea
Architectural photography is a service industry, serving the client-architects in helping them communicate their architectural ideas in their built work. An architectural photograph has two principal uses to an architect: a photograph is more immediate than the coded language of an architectural drawing, and it proves the building is real, further signifying that the architect has experience and tangible skill. Architectural drawing is a highly coded system, where meaning is communicated through line, weight and symbol. Both technical and "freehand" sketches utilize the same codes, although in technical drawing the codes are more clearly and uniformly expressed. Work has been done to explicitly show the inherent meaning that lines and symbols carry in architectural discourse. Daniel Libeskind's Micromegas (below) series of drawings illustrate the amount of meaning we project onto and through lines. Through the manipulation of projection systems and a mixture of architectural symbols and drafting conventions, Liberskind produces a drawing filled with free-floating signifiers. The code by which architectural drawing operates is brought to the surface, because this drawing contains no holistic, rational meaning, but we still recognize the symbolic systems it contains and search for an overall signified.
The second principal use for the architectural photograph is to act as a stamp of reality-approval. "The architect can and does build." For many architects this is a contentious point, as in the unbelievable structures of Herzog and deMuron. (below left) Even though the fact that the building is real is an important message to communicate, the reality of the building is not pictured in this photograph. The building is the Walker Arts Center, a cultural structure that appears as a floating sculptural cube. This photograph, commissioned by the architects, communicates nothing of scale or inhabitation of space. The photograph is made to look as surreal as possible, with oddly colored lighting and almost no sense of ground plane. anamorphism is again used, although this time it's harder to tell. When interpreting this photograph, the viewer cannot relate his or her body to the pictured structure. This effect is the title of Lyle Massey's book Picturing Space, Displacing Bodies, a work about how anamorphosis was resolved in early theories of perspective. Massey also makes the point that anamorphic space is not Cartesian in its spatial properties, and shows "a thing ... to be something other than itself, [bringing] the gaze itself into view."ref Ironically, architects use this projection construct to represent rationalized space. Lacan wrote that "perspective viewpoint is a mask behind which the subject falsely imagines his or her true self to reside." Through the use of anamorphism, the subject cannot reside behind the mask of the viewpoint, because we cannot inhabit a non-Cartesian space. We are forced to remove ourselves from the real world, and enter a more conceptual way of seeing. In architectural discourse anamorphism is used to displace a viewers body in order to abstract a photograph of a building to the drawing from which it was built.
Since the beginning of commissioned architectural photography, an architectural photograph has been a "collusion" between an architect and a photographer (and sometimes a publishing editor). ref Architects ask photographers to emphasize or downplay certain elements of finished structures to suit their architectural ideas. In my own experience as a professional photographer, architects' methodologies to photography vary greatly. Some designers present me with photos they have taken themselves that show their interest in the project and ask me to use as a basis for my work. Others show me their drawings and diagrams as a way to express their ideas about the space. A principally "other" group ask me to evaluate the project on its own merits and send me out with no preparation. In my opinion and experience, the best designers are the most concerned with having their ideas clearly communicated through photography and spend the most amount of time working with me. At the same time, the creations of the stronger designers express their ideas clearly, which makes personal communication with the designer with me less critical for me, as I can usually understand their intentions without explicit explanation. The weaker designers communicate a lot less with me, and ironically (because the spaces need all the help they can get!) their projects have less for me to express photographically. From my experience I draw the conclusion that the more ideas an architect has, the more emphasis he or she will place on the effective documentation and representation of those ideas. I have an amusing anecdote from working for one firm: I produced a series of renderings of a project in close collaboration with the designers. Then a photographer photographed the space, ignoring those renderings. The designers were never satisfied with her photos, because they never lived up to their own ideas about the space, which were shown clearly in the renderings. The photographs have been retired, and I am now their photographer. I ask to see their drawings of the projects they commission me to document. Sometimes the amount of distortion or abstraction I have to add to the photos erases any sense of place or function, but I believe it is important to let the architects tell their stories on their own terms, leaving reality out of the frame.