ABSTRACT
There is a moment in the development of every building project when it must come to life, but as we know, that is not literally possible until it has been constructed. In the repertoire of twentieth-century media, before the era of virtual reality, photography became the most realistic fabricator of architecture, whilst it could also be edited to control the projected image of built works. From the early twentieth century, photography and photomontage were used to develop and convey new ideas about space and its conguration. Conventional drawing forms, typically the plan, section and elevation, described buildings as stationary compositions of elements such as walls, oors or stairs, but it was dicult for them to convey the dynamic eects of buildings in use and the experience of motion, synonymous with Modernist architecture. Photography could do this, catching momentary eects of light and activity with its facility to convey depth, whilst placing designs in their wider contexts, moderated by the subjectivity of the photographer. Architects developed exploratory and descriptive uses for the medium, shifting from drawing or etching to photography’s mechanical, reproducible techniques with their perceived spontaneity, which could be used experimentally and to disseminate ideas. In photomontage, it could also be used to develop designs, conveying as yet unbuilt proposals in which schemes were drawn into photographs of existing places, or fragments of building elements and contexts could be collaged together.
