ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the two frameworks in order to posit a relationship between an emerging urban photogenie typified by the work of contemporary artists Thomas Demand and Peter Granser, on the one hand, and the vernacular architecture of architainment, on the other; a relationship that in turn facilitates a more complex understanding of the shift in social space articulated through such architectural and photographic gestures. Demand and Granser—both part of a generation of artists as informed by postmodern manifestos like Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Forms as it is by the conceptual break proposed by Ed Ruscha's artist books from the 1960s—showcases such theatrical constructs. In 1972, the architect Robert Venturi reproduced Ruscha's Sunset Strip project by similarly photographing every building on the Las Vegas strip. As New Urbanism markets identity through such stage-set architecture, it also markets an artificially constructed history by selling a manufactured fable of origin.
