ABSTRACT
Both architecture and photography express a dimension of time and place, and in their surfaces symbolic meanings can be read. There are, however, marked differences in the practice of the photography of architecture and no one movement or school characterises the genre. The representation of architectural structures by photographers is a diverse and expanding field of investigation. On the one hand, there are architectural photographers whose images are made in accordance with the architect’s intentions and ambitions. Their mandate is ostensibly to promote the architect
and his or her work, while also conveying a visually strong image. Photographers who worked in the 1930s in the United States, such as Ezra Stoller (1915-2004), Julius Shulman (1910-2009) and Bill Hedrich (1931-1988) among others demonstrated the acme of this kind of practice, creating enduring images of architecture that paid homage to the architect but were somewhat subservient to the architect’s vision. As Pimlott (2012, 202) notes, “the document is considered the foundation of architectural photography: the photograph is typically intended to encapsulate and to objectively represent its subject.” Much of these photographers’ work did much to publicise contemporary architecture, and the images themselves continue to be reproduced today.
