Building With Light: The History of Architectural Photography

Architectural Photography – a Powerful Relationship

This beautiful book charts the striking symbiotic relationship between architecture and photography, that was once described as a process of ‘building with light’. Many iconic images of much-loved buildings are reproduced since the invention of photography in the 1840s. Elwall makes the case that whilst many view architectural photography almost as a stand-in for the buildings themselves, the truth is that they are powerful interpretations which have often shaped the way that we have seen architecture.

As the primary means of architectural communication, it was photography that helped to establish Modernism as the new architectural orthodoxy. H. S. Goodhart-Rendel’s ironically perceptive observation made in the 1930’s about the power of images as a substitute for reality has even greater relevance today: “The modern architectural drawing is interesting, the photograph is magnificent, the building is an unfortunate but necessary stage between the two.”

GDC interiors book collection on amazon building with light

Le Corbusier was also famously fascinated by the ability of photography to capture and disseminate his ideas and creativity to a wider international audience and actively attempted to harness photography in this way. He once remarked that “For forty years I’ve been looking for a photographer able to express architecture.” He clearly found him in the person of self-taught photographer Lucien Herve, to whom Le Corbusier remarked “You have the soul of an architect.” The unavoidably pivotal role of photography in promoting architects and architecture is now so well established that many tomes -such as this one – and exhibitions (for example the recent Constructing Worlds Exhibition at the Barbican) have regularly addressed this relationship. It is therefore no surprise that contemporary superstar architects such as both Zaha Hadid and Daniel Libeskind have valued their collaborations with world class photographers such as the recent Julius Shulman prize winner Helene Binet.

Authoritatively written by a world-renowned expert and illustrated with arresting images from collections throughout the world, this study is essential reading for anyone interested in architecture, photography and the history of their special relationship.