SOURCE MATERIAL

Knowlton School of Architecture at The Ohio State University
Fall 2021

Photographic images have been fundamental to the comprehension and experience of architecture since Niépce’s View From The Window at Le Gras (1826). Photographic images are the de facto substitute for an architectural project’s physical presence due to their ease of reproduction and veil of realism. Staging, lighting, and post-processing produce an image-based architectural experience significantly disconnected from physical reality, creating hyper-real abstractions of the subjects they depict.

As André Bazin would argue, the taxonomy of a traditional architectural photograph implies a “mummy complex”—the photographic process freezes a building’s condition before its inevitable distribution and corruption and attempts to produce an ideal condition that could never be. Contemporary digital environments challenge the ideal image of a project by intermixing amateur and professional photographic images; an ever-expanding repository of architectural images reveals details hidden or erased by commercial photographic practices and institutional curation. This phenomenon profoundly alters our perception of the built environment and constitutes a virtual presence that perpetually mediates our physical existence.

Curated by: Zelig Fok / 2021-22 LeFevre Fellow

Studio members: Summer Albouy, Alexander Faza, Sam Goecke, Leah Gripp, Anna McCarty, Josiah Minniear, Noah Nicolette, Allison Schawe, Vila Shao, Jerry Ta