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Along with the abundance of design websites, where architectural companies can promote themselves, architectural photography has become increasingly important in recent years. The photo has come to define more and more how much promotion a building will receive, and thus photogenic architecture is essential to success.
So it is reasonable to speculate how the rise of architectural photography can affect the design decisions in the direction of photogenic buildings. And that key to its initial conception, the architects will consider how the building will be represented, in order for it to be promoted as widely and favourably as possible.
Luckily, architectural photography is now also being regarded as a specific field in itself, as a specialist area, and it even now has its own category among architectural awards. This is an interesting move, where the representation of the architecture is being seen as important as the building itself.
The Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards is, however, only about photography, albeit of buildings. The award was started in 2012, and this year’s prize was presented at the World Architecture Festival in Singapore, with some very prominent names on the judging panel – Zaha Hadid, Ivan Harbour, Catherine Slessor, Eva Jiricna and Graham Stirk.
Although the award is described as aiming “to focus on the skill and creativity of the photographer” is it actually possible to ignore the beauty of the portrayed building? Could the winning photo be of a building as mundane as, say, a supermarket or a shopping centre? It is difficult to imagine the winner not portraying a spectacular monumental piece of architecture, and, I guess, only time will tell if that will ever be the case.
The Awards invites both judges and viewers to look beyond the actual architecture and, instead, explore the composition, atmosphere and, what I find essential when speaking of architecture; the sense of place of each photograph.
And studying the winning photograph by Ken Schluchtmann of Trollstigen, by the Norwegian architectural practice Reiulf Ramstad, this is exactly what this piece does. It captures a new angle of this very photogenic and publicised project, and, as such, it manages to give a new perspective to the context – to the grandeur of the Norwegian landscape that in this image comes across as if of an almost magic place. It certainly captures the sense of place.
The architect Friederike Meyer says of the winning photograph,“Described as much more than mere reproductions, Schluchtmann’s images penetrate to the very essence of his subjects. They distil light and colour in a long process involving both analogue and digital techniques, imbuing photographs with an unusually sculptural depth. Some say they create incarnations of design in the way that other photographers create incarnations of fashion.”
The winner is exhibited in a show entitled Building Images, among with several of the runners up in the newly opened Sto Werkstatt (workshop in German) in Clerkenwell, London. The exhibition showcases some of the very best photographers specialising in portraying architecture. Building Images is the inaugural exhibition at the Werkstatt and shows the breadth and invention in both architecture and photography today.
by Runa Mathiesen
Building Images is on from February 28 – April 25, 2014 and is open Wednesday to Friday, 10am–5pm or by appointment via email: werkstatt@sto.com or call: 020 7222 2221
Additional events are planned throughout the exhibition and will be announced on the Sto website: