The International Photography Awards has announced the winners of its 2020 photography competition. Showcasing some of the most outstanding photographic work from around the globe, this year’s contest gathered a total of 13,000 entries from 120 countries. Discover the selection of winners and honorable mentions from the architecture sub-categories: fine art, cityscapes, bridges, buildings, interior, historic, industrial, abstract, and other.
Recent years have prompted a rediscovery and a re-framing of some of the more controversial architectural phenomenons of the past century, with Brutalist architecture coagulating significant interest through its sheer scale, powerful expression and purist forms. Brutalist architecture across the former Eastern Bloc is inextricably associated with the totalitarian regimes that marked the history of this part of Europe during the last half of the 20th century. Following in line with the architecture of the Eastern Bloc, Poland’s urban landscape is dotted with large-scale prefab housing estates and stark brutalist public buildings constructed during the country’s Communist rule.
Halloween is a holiday that centers on space and ritual. Most likely originating from Celtic harvest festivals, Halloween is tied to processions like trick-or-treating, as well as history and spatial stories. The holiday celebrates imagined settings, characters, and events. In similar celebrations like Mexico's Día de Muertos, people gather in unlikely places; cemeteries and graveyards become the backdrops to picnics and celebrations. There, families offer flowers and food to deceased relatives as they celebrate history and the lives of loved ones.
Hufton+Crow has unveiled its latest series of images, capturing Denmark's recent and inventive projects, completed between 2018 and 2019. The photographs showcase CopenHill Energy Plant and Urban Recreation Center by BIG, along with Tingbjerg Library and Culture House and Køge Nord Station, both designed by COBE.
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A city's industrial past can leave unsettling imprints on the present. Large abandoned structures and forgotten facilities are very appealing not only to the voracious real estate market but also to the imagination of those who daydream about an unpromising past. Take the Ruhr valley, Germany's most populated urban area, and Europe's largest industrial region.
In Mexico, self-construction has been a topic heated debate between its advocates and opponents; however, this doesn't diminish its prevalence throughout Mexico and the world. Over the past few years, initiatives on the part of architects have driven the creation of instruction manuals for do-it-yourself builders as a way to promote health and safety in self-construction and to also provide insight into building materials and techniques. In many ways, the initiative has improved the self-construction process, a fact evident in the increasingly visible creations seen throughout Mexico.
Marking the 80th birthday of architect Ricardo Bofill last December, photographer Sebastian Weiss recently captured the designer's iconic La Muralla Roja in Calp, Spain. The housing project references popular architecture of the Mediterranean and was inspired by the tradition of the casbah. The striking colors that cover the outer and inner facades are selected to both contrast nature and complement its purity.
With the recent completion of several new stations and tunnels, the Athens underground metro expansion and the development of the Thessaloniki Metro system are on a set course to completion in Greece. The construction of a direct connection between the Athens airport and the Piraeus harbour, as well as the development of Thessaloniki’s first metro line, are underway, and images by photographer Pygmalion Karatzas show the new underground infrastructure coming together in the two Greek cities.
When we talk about natural or man-made spaces, the void immediately comes into play. This is understood as that matter that is untouched and that allows living the experience of inhabiting.
The photography of the artist Simone Bossi narrates the qualities of the space creating atmospheres that allow a new reading on the emptiness.
You have only to look at Miguel De Guzmán and Rocío Romero's portfolio to know that the duo have succeeded in capturing a wide array of panoramas and sharing the ideas attached to them. Through their Madrid and New York based photography and film studio, Imagen Subliminal, document the latest happenings in the world of architecture in an effort to give their audience a taste of the energy and creativity that drives it.
We sat down with the duo in honor World Photography Day, where they shared how their work has changed through the years and photography's contemporary and future role in architecture.
Between the late 1940s to the 1980s, Toronto, Canada, experienced a high rate of growth and development, resulting in a wealth of modernist-style buildings. Due to an increasing population, parishes were also outgrowing their spaces and found themselves in need of new facilities. Consequently, many well-designed modernist churches began to pop up throughout Toronto. This black and white photography series, titled Fifty/50 by Amanda Large, is an ode to these churches, and a celebration of their enduring importance to the city more than fifty years after their construction.
The Manifesto of Futurism, written by Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in 1909, was the rallying cry for the avant-garde movement driven by the writers, musicians, artists, and even architects (among them Antonio Sant'Elia) in the early 20th century. After the manifesto's publication, Futurism quickly came to the forefront of public conscience and opened the way for many other cutting edge movements in the art world and beyond.
While the movement would undergo a significant decline in the years following World War II, it reinvented itself decades later during the Space Age, when faith in technology and industry were at a fever-pitch and the world's powers were racing to put humans on the Moon. All of a sudden, humanity had a new cultural panorama that inspired every facet of society--from musicians, to scientists, to architects. With the combination of engineering and art, not to mention the bountiful scientific achievements of the time, works of architecture turned into works of science fiction.
The COVID-19 pandemic quickly shuttered the doors of businesses, schools and workplaces across the world. From telecommuting to virtual events, cities have experienced less noise, traffic and pollution. Filmmaker and Director Jeff Durkin of Breadtruck Films recently began to capture these quiet moments on the University of California San Diego campus. Taking inspirations from science fiction series Tales from the Loop, he set out with his children to explore over 100 acres of modern architecture.
Through a visual survey, architect and photographer Ramón Paolini explores the evolution of Caracas (Venezuela). The photographs capture the capital's transformation throughout the past forty years, giving viewers an in depth look at one of Latin America's most tumultuous regions, its urban development, and the socio-political aspects behind it. Most importantly, Paolini illustrates his personal vision for this urban space that builds, destroys, and rebuilds with an astounding tenacity.
As remnants of the Industrial Age, the London gas holders are a fascinating presence across the urban landscape, one which is on the verge of disappearing. The photographic essay Ruin or Rust portrays the uncanny structures as the backdrop of everyday life, capturing their relationship to the urban context. The result of a two-year-long endeavor, this personal project of London-based photographer Francesco Russo frames the dialogue between these elements of the cityscape and the life going on around them, investigating their role in contemporary society and the urban fabric.
This article was originally published on Common Edge.
New York City: locked down, empty. It was heartbreaking, of course, but it was also beautiful. For artist Edgar Jerins, that revelation was something of a surprise. Who knew this bustling, chaotic, dirty, vibrant, profane, amazing city could look so … gorgeous when stripped of people and activity? For years, Jerins rode the subway to his studio near Times Square. When news of the spreading pandemic first surfaced—more as a vague, undefined threat, initially—he fled out of fear to the bus, and then, after the severity of the event became apparent and the lockdown began, he borrowed his daughter’s bicycle.
There are strange elements of connection within this phenomenon of social distancing: not only is the whole world experiencing it simultaneously, but we also seem to share a global momentum of awareness that something unique is taking place, which demands to be documented and gradually understood.
Moved by that impulse and under the guidance of professor Erieta Attali, 16 students from The Cooper Union, explored, through photography, their everyday life now ruled by isolation and social distancing. And they did so, not from a single city, but from 10 different places, as they returned to their home countries amidst the crisis.
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The new Zoomed In virtual photography and architecture festival has launched this week. Running from 21st - 24th of April, the festival brings together a diverse international selection of architectural photographers and cross-disciplinary creatives in a series of online talks and discussions, short film screenings, image galleries, and a charity print sale to raise funds for those most in need during the current pandemic crisis.
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.jpg?1602705111 "Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in Essen. Photography & Concept © Erieta Attali")
.jpg?1602705591 "Duisburg-Nord public park. Photography & Concept © Erieta Attali")
.jpg?1602705763 "Duisburg-Nord public park. Photography & Concept © Erieta Attali")
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-Alastair-Philip-Wiper.jpg?1587401452 "Courtesy of Zoomed In Festival")
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