Architectural photography provides a window into the built world, making significant structures more accessible to people who may never have the chance to visit them. A good architectural photograph captures more than just the physical structure; it conveys the mood, scale, and context of a space. Each photograph is unique and shaped by the photographer's eye, which conveys their sensitivity and perception of the built environment through their lens.
Born in the post-war period in the United Kingdom, the Brutalism movement was first met with skepticism but has found a new appreciation in the last decade, capturing the imagination of new designers fascinated with the interplay between striking geometric shapes and the exposed raw materials in which they are rendered. From Britain, the movement spread throughout Europe, Southeast Asia, and Africa, gathering different variations influenced by the cultural and socio-economic status of each area. In this article, we delve into the particularities that define Italy's contribution to the Brutalist movement, exploring the style through the lens of Roberto Conte and Stefano Perego. The two photographers have also published a photographic essay on the subject, taking the form of a book titled "Brutalist Italy: Concrete Architecture from the Alps to the Mediterranean Sea".
Now in its 18th edition, the Sony World Photography Awards serve as a global platform for both established and emerging artists, offering an annual glimpse into contemporary photography. This free-to-enter competition provides exposure across 10 categories, including Architecture, Landscape, Travel, and Street Photography. Each category awards a winner, features a shortlist of selected works, and culminates in the title of Open Photographer of the Year. For the 2025 Open competition, participants were invited to submit their strongest single images from 2024, with a focus on capturing and distilling a singular moment while evoking a broader narrative.
In the south of France, a 40-minute drive east of Montpellier, lies the otherworldly resort town of La Grande Motte. Named after a nearby sand dune, the city is characterized by futuristic, pyramid-shaped apartment blocks in various relief forms, adorned with diverse vegetation including pines, planes, olives, poplars, and cypresses. Artists Charly Broyez and Laurent Kronental describe this unique character as "a fairy-tale vision of a land emerging from the uncharted territories of our psyche, loaded with memories, images, sounds, colors, history." Through their meticulous images, they reveal the city's distinctive architecture.
Beyond just a visual record, architectural photography is a powerful medium that holds the ability to reveal and explore architectural spaces from unique perspectives. Through the lens of a skilled photographer, architecture showcases its interplay of lights and shadows, the tectonics of its structural elements, the careful detailing of joined materials, and the larger narratives of cultural heritage. On World Photography Day 2024, we celebrate this unique art form by highlighting the work of 25 distinguished photographers who have captured architecture in its most evocative forms.
Among the featured photo series, Paul Clemence explores the minimalist precision of Swiss museums, Iwan Baan offers a visual narrative of Prague, while Simone Bossi highlights the contrast between man-made structures and their natural surroundings. Additionally, Marc Goodwin continues his series on architecture studios from around the world, providing a glimpse into the profession’s creative spaces. Erieta Attali’s work transports viewers to ancient ruins to explore historical juxtapositions and cultural landscapes.
Further developing his collection of photographic series featuring architecture offices from around the world, Archmospheres photographer Marc Goodwin is now exploring workspaces in Taiwan. Among the included offices are well-known studios such as Fieldoffice Architects, an office whose output has significant cultural importance as they represent an example of Taiwanese Deconstructivist Architecture, in addition to other offices such as KRIS YAO | ARTECH, Divooe Zein Architects, and hii architects.
To create this collection, Marc Goodwin collaborated with Italian architect, publisher, teacher, and curator Alessandro Martinelli, who is based in Taipei. He selected the participants with the help of Mr. Chung-Hsiung Wang, the curator of the Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018. The series will continue to develop with the creation of scale models for each studio, which will be exhibited alongside the photographs in the Taiwan Pavilion of the Venice Biennale.
The Sony World Photography Awards 2024 has announced its category winners and shortlist, showcasing the best single images from around the world captured during the last year. With over 395,000 submissions from 220 countries and territories, the competition aims to highlight established and emerging photographers from around the world. The Open Competition is divided into 10 category sections, covering a diverse range of themes, from Architecture and Landscape to Portraiture, Lifestyle, and Wildlife photography.
For the Architecture category, ArchDaily collaborator Ana Skobe has been declared the winner with a photograph titled “Falling Out of Time.” Bathed in the soft hues of evening light, a sleek geometric structure rises from the coastal landscape, its clean lines contrasting with the natural elements surrounding it. Positioned at the base of the lighthouse, a solitary figure gives a sense of scale to the composition, as it contemplates the vastness of the ocean.
CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, has started a new initiative known as the Science Gateway. The building was designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, architects in collaboration with Brodbeck Roulet Architectes Associés (Geneva). Reflecting the institution's broader mission, it encompasses the values of sharing knowledge, technology, and scientific inspiration with society. The Science Gateway is envisioned as an innovative facility dedicated to scientific education and outreach, aiming to catalyze curiosity and passion for science among younger generations. In his latest photo series, Paul Clemence photographed the CERN Science Gateway Building in Geneva, Switzerland.
The URBAN Photo Awards 2023 has announced its list of Finalist Photographers, marking the penultimate stage of the international contest. The finalists, categorized by section and thematic area, are presented without hierarchical ranking, encompassing a collection of over 70 single photos, 20 projects & portfolios, alongside 5 Book Award volumes selected by the jury. As the competition unfolds, the internationally-recognized World Photography Day adds another layer of relevance to this display. Commemorated annually on August 19th, this celebration strives to bridge the divide between photographers and the broader public. This year's iteration revolves around the theme "Landscapes." The URBAN Photo Awards 2023's diverse showcase serves as a fitting nod to the upcoming World Photography Day, where the camera highlights facets of our urban surroundings.
Roland Halbe came into photography entirely by accident, discovering it at the age of 15 in a class on optics. His physics teacher presented camera obscura effects, which immediately triggered his fascination. He then started borrowing his father’s old camera quite regularly. While still in high school, Roland worked part-time at a camera shop, eagerly discovering everything there is to know about photography. Those were the circumstances that kindled Halbe’s lifelong romance, first with black and white, and, eventually, color photography with a focus on the built environment.
In a recent photo series, Paul Clemence turns his lens toward Bjarke Ingels Group's (BIG) Hôtel des Horlogers, located in the Swiss Village of Le Brassus in Switzerland. Previously known as Hôtel de France, which opened in 1857, Audemars Piguet reimagined the project. BIG, an international studio known for avant-garde architecture and experimentation, continues to see this claim to its end through the design of a compact structure made up of five floors, with its rooms connected in a single zig-zag path. Designed in collaboration with the Swiss design firm, CCHE, a futuristic structural form featuring layers of long ramps was assembled for Audemars Piguet's vision of a luxury hotel.
Over the years, ArchDaily has brought us the most innovative architecture projects through the eyes of creative specialized photographers. Their captures bring us closer to the works, reflect the vision of the architects and, above all, transmit and generate the most varied emotions.
From conversations with these talented photographers, we can understand, at least a little, what they feel when facing an architectural project with a camera in hand.
In his latest photo series, Paul Clemence turns his lens towards the newest addition to Chicago’s famed skyline: the undulating shapes of St. Regis Tower, formerly known as Vista Tower. Designed by Studio Gang, the 101-story supertall skyscraper makes its mark as Chicago’s third tallest building. Despite its size, the volume appears slender due to the flowing rhythm that defines its three nested towers.
The tower aims to enhance rather than disrupt its surrounding urban fabric. Sitting between downtown Lakeshore East Park and the Chicago Riverwalk, the careful design of the lower levels allows for a porous connection between the two attractions. Innovative structural systems are implemented to achieve this by completely elevating the second volume from the ground.
Paul Clemence’s capture of Zürich’s MFO Park is an evocative photo series for Archi-photo, demonstrating the juxtaposition between the metal shell of the man-made and the wild nature of the park itself. Vines intertwining themselves upon the skeleton of the structure create an attractive destination, replenishing the brownfield land and replacing it with a renewed and captivating image.
Zürich’s MFO park is a vibrant parkscape in Switzerland, previously a site used for around a century by the Oerlikon Machine Works (MFO). Saturated with construction debris and pollution during a long period of industrialization, it has been transformed into a green paradise with the nearby wooded Oerliker Park brimming with ash trees. Offering a diverse area of open space it is available to the public for a wide range of activities and events, with the presence of ‘Park House’, a large open hall, and trellis enveloped with climbing vegetation.
‘La Muralla Roja’ When the sun goes down III, is an evocative new Photo series by Andrés Gallardo. 5 years after initially visiting Ricardo Bofill’s creation, Gallardo revisited with the intention of creating a totally contrasting series, capturing the complex through sunset, the night and into sunrise. With regard to the fact that there are not many photographs in circulation during the night-time period, Gallardo set out to capture the complex during twilight, with the placid roll of the waves against the seafront.
‘La Muralla Roja’ translated as ‘The Red Wall’ is a vibrant housing project in Spain’s Calpe. Casbah is a term often mentioned in regards to this particular project, suggesting Bofill himself drew upon North African Arabic themes for his inspiration. Casbah refers to a citadel or castle, a walled central area of a town or city upon the traditional quarter. The Mediterranean complex mimics this built-up realm, with an entanglement of walkways, stairs, balconies, and bridges interlocking in harmonious effect.
In this episode of “Behind the Scenes”, where we showcase the work of visionary photographers and ask about their experiences beyond what is seen by the public, we present Pablo Casals Aguirre, an architect, professor, photographer, and filmmaker based in Santiago, Chile. Here, he shares his methodology, which he developed with references to cinema, and highlights his intentions of translating the best architectural works into imagery - be it still or in movement.
After a two-year hiatus due to the global pandemic, Architectural photographer Marc Goodwin has resumed work on the Atlas of Architectural Atmospheres, Archmospheres, starting with the city of Berlin. This project that seeks to capture architecture offices from around the world has already gathered images from Madrid, Brazil, Panama City, the Netherlands, Dubai, London, Paris, Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, the Nordic countries, Barcelona, Los Angeles, and Istanbul.
Documenting diverse architecture and design studios, Goodwin captured 13 different office spaces in Berlin, including Hesse, LAVA, JWA, Tchoban Voss, Richter Musikowski, Barkow Leibinger, FAR frohn&rojas, studio Karhard, Jasper, Kleihues + Kleihues, Graft, Bundschuh Architekten and Sauerbruch Hutton.
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Architectural photography has developed into its own art form, and it might be as important as the built work itself. We consume architecture not only physically and spatially in a building but also through photographs. A good image reportage work can give the viewer a feeling of the atmosphere, senses, and design intentions the project may spark, without actually being in the place. Photography is also a way of documenting the project's process, the use of materials, lighting, and architectural elements, and as a result, tell a complete story behind a building.
To celebrate World Photography Day, we've gathered a list of 25 architectural photographers from around the world who are worth knowing - and following on Instagram. These emerging photographers have been selected for their ability to capture architecture each in their own unique ways. Get to know them!
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_Alex_shoots_buildings.jpg?1629229852 "© Alex shoots buildings")
_Leonid_Furmansky.jpg?1629230142 "© Leonid Furmansky")
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