Laurian Ghinitoiu Named Overall Winner of the Architectural Photography Awards 2019

Written by Kate Grace
Published on December 15, 2019

Architectural Photographer Laurian Ghinitoiu recently won in three categories in the Architectural Photography Awards 2019. The categories where he received awards were Social Housing, Exterior and Buildings in Use.

What started as a curiosity for Ghinitoiu, photography, through hard work and passion soon became a lifestyle and a continuous journey around the world. To date, this journey, has allowed him to receive an improved and more complex understanding of architecture, where he documents the built environment.

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He states that photography “is a powerful tool that helps me document and investigate contemporary issues around the built environment. My approach is objective, contextual and atmospheric, focusing on materiality, scale and people, with their daily habits and behaviours. I’m exploring the edge of designed and informal architecture, looking for the moment where the two meet and harmoniously coexist”.

Ghinitoiu’s win in the Exterior Category was ‘The Twist Museum, Kistefos Sculpture Park’ located in Jevnaker, Norway and designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). The elements that make up this photograph, such as its surrounding context, design, scale and surreal atmosphere are what allowed this image to become abstract and descriptive simultaneously. Ghinitoiu said that “it was challenging to combine in one single frame the main particularities of the project: its sculptural shape, the structure that expands over the river, as a bridge and at the same time to imply that “the object” is actually a functional building”.

Ghinitoiu’s second award won was in the category of Social Housing, through a series of photos of the project GHI Transformation Project – Part of the Cité du Grand Parc in Bordeaux, France, by architects Lacaton & Vassal, Druot, Hutin. The series of images were selected to “help the viewer to read the project by understanding the context firstly, and continuing with the scale and materiality”. (Ghinitoiu). The main focus through this series of images is in the way the users occupy the building and interact with it.

The third award won was in the Buildings in Use Category and was Skanderbeg Square, Tirana, Albania by 51N4E. This photograph was about transforming spaces that are somewhat underutilized into spaces that can be used by the public. For Ghinitoiu this was portrayed by the architects “arranging a series of double-size seats’ to allow people to dwell in personalized spaces in relation to the plaza. In this image “the afternoon light is providing the perfect atmosphere to graphically overlap a multitude of intimate moments that coexist within a public space”. (Ghinitoiu)

In response to winning three awards, Ghinitoiu said “I’m humbled to be selected the winner in three categories. This award confirms my belief that if one devotes their focus and hard work to passion, it can lead to great, acknowledged results. The feeling that I’m appreciated for my work is definitely giving me energy and will to keep doing what I do, and I hope my example will inspire others to follow their dreams just like work of other professionals inspired me before."