Hiroshi Sugimoto: Architecture

Known for his long-exposure photographic series of empty movie theaters and driveins, seascapes, museum dioramas, and waxworks, Hiroshi Sugimoto has been turning his camera on international icons of twentieth-century architecture since 1997. His deliberately blurred and seemingly timeless photographs depict structures as diverse as the Empire State Building, Le Corbusiers Chapel de Nütre Dame du Haut, and Tadao Andos Church of Light in Osaka. The resulting black-and-white photographs, shot distinctly out of focus and from unusual angles, are not attempts at documentation but rather evocation--meant to isolate the buildings from their contexts, allowing them to exist as dreamlike, uninhabited ideals. Among the other buildings represented in the series are Philippe Starcks Asahi Breweries, Fumihiko Makis Fujisawa Municipal Gymnasium, the United Nations Building, the Chrysler Building, Giuseppi Terragnis Santelia Monument Como, the World Trade Center, Mies van der Rohes Seagram Building, Antonio Gauds Casa Batll* II, the 1922 Schindler House, and buildings by Frank Gehry, Frank Lloyd Wright, and many others in Europe, North America and Asia. See more