In this extract from the introductory essay to Infinite Space, a new compilation of dream houses photographed by James Silverman over the course of his travels, Alan Rapp discusses the photographer's approach to architectural image-making in the 'age of the globalized residence'.
Whether of a remote mountain cabin in Norway, a sensuous desert oasis in Morocco, or a monolithic concrete home in Switzerland, Silverman’s photographs capture the seemingly uninterrupted flow between interior and exterior space. The architecture documented in this book is often defined by elements that absorb, reflect, or deliberately break with their surroundings. Together they show how 'infinite space has become a key precept of contemporary architecture across the world.
The window is still the humblest plane. It did not start out as that magic surface that generously permitted a vista out to the world. As early as the Republican era, before piped water, Roman houses had angular cutouts in the roof of a central living space that vented smoke from the hearth fire. A depression under this opening also gathered rainwater into the house’s cistern. Aperture, skylight, and chimney: the earliest of what we would consider modern houses were adept at multitasking.
