We look for materials which are as intelligent, versatile and complex as natural phenomena, in other words materials which don't just appeal to the eyes of the astounded art critic, but are also really efficient and appeal to all our senses.
– Jacques Herzog
Like several other works of architecture by Herzog & de Meuron the Forum Building, known since the 2012 relocation of Barcelona's Museu de les Ciències Naturals as the Museu Blau, is remarkable for its sensitive use of materials. A triangular mass of gray-blue concrete punctured and split in places to reveal the contrasting use of reflective planes, the building is a hard one to ignore, especially for an architectural photographer.
In its striking play of surfaces, textures, and patterns, the Forum Building alternates between darkness and light, solid and liquid, rough and smooth. It floats and hovers, but also asserts itself. Located at the end of Barcelona's Avinguda Diagonal just a short distance from the Mediterranean, it occupies a strange place between land, water, and sky, which Moscow-based architectural photographer Denis Esakov sets out to explore in this photo series.
