Modernism in Miniature: Points of View

The exhibition ‘Modernism in Miniature: Points of View,’ curated by Deriu, explored intersections between the model boom of the early twentieth century and the parallel explosion of mass media in architectural culture. The project was rooted in the preliminary work undertaken during a residence at the CCA Study Centre as a visiting scholar in 2007. He was subsequently invited to carry out further research at the CCA archives and to curate this exhibition. Drawing primarily, though not exclusively, on materials from the CCA collections, the show illustrated various means by which architectural models were produced, reproduced, and disseminated to the public. The exhibition was installed in the CCA’s Octagonal Gallery and included photographs, magazines, film, and additional source materials that illustrated a variety of visual practices that contributed to position the architectural model as a preeminent tool of design and representation within European and American modernism. These objects were grouped according to six interrelated themes, which were presented in such a way as to create visual links between primary and secondary sources. The exhibition was widely reviewed in the international press and gained wider impact through a website, which has been further developed after the show to include selected images, installation shots, and downloadable materials, along with the video of Deriu's curator's talk delivered on the opening day. Deriu was invited to present his project at the conference ‘Still Architecture: Photography, Vision and Cultural Transmission’ at the University of Cambridge, 2012. The same year, he was also invited to give a lecture at Nottingham Contemporary Art Centre, in conjunction with the exhibition of model photographs by the German artist Thomas Demand

‘Don’t look down!’: A short history of rooftopping photography

The article examines the practice known as ‘rooftopping photography’ and its significance for the representation of vertical cities. It begins by charting the historical development of architecture as a viewing platform in the age of the camera, and dwells on the imagery of cityscapes from above that emerged in the inter-war period. Against this background, the essay investigates how rooftopping arose out of the urban exploration movement and became a global trend in the early 2010s. This phenomenon is situated within its wider social and cultural context, and is discussed with reference to the online media discourse that contributed to its public visibility. A set of ideas from the philosophy of photography and visual culture inform the critical analysis of rooftopping photographs: this broad and diverse body of images is examined with a focus on two predominant modes of representation—panoramic and plunging views. The affective responses elicited by so-called ‘vertigo-inducing’ images are discussed through the concept of vicarious kinaesthesia, which offers insights into the nexus between visceral experience and visual representation that lies at the core of rooftopping. By unpacking this interplay, the essay explores a phenomenon that has hitherto been given little scholarly attention and reflects on its broader implications for the relationship between photography and architecture today

Moscow Vertigo

The paper explores the relationship between photography and architecture as a mutually constitutive one. Besides standing as subjects for the camera, buildings can also extend the photographer’s capability to depict the surrounding landscape. In the interwar period, this interplay was exploited by avant-garde photographers associated with the “New Vision” who used architecture as a viewing platform. Among them was Aleksander Rodchenko, whose experiments with high-angle shots were part of the wider project to construct a revolutionary visual language for Soviet art. Moscow was the theatre of this visual revolution. Eight decades later, Italian photographer Gabriele Basilico visited the Russian capital and produced a photo-book, Mosca Verticale, that references Rodchenko’s work in more than one way. Atypically, Basilico elevated the vue en plongée to his main framing device as he set out to depict the sprawling city from the Seven Sisters – the monumental high-rise towers built under Stalin between the late 1940s and the mid 1950s. Through considering Basilico’s words as well as his pictures, the essay unpacks the multiple layers that constitute Mosca Verticale. It draws connections not only with the work of Rodchenko but also with that of Russian “rooftoppers” who, in recent years, have raised the vertiginous representation of the city to new heights. As a cluster of “supertall” buildings redesigns its skyline, Moscow is once again the European epicentre of a particular type of interaction between photography and architecture, whereby the latter serves as a platform to visualise the dizzying spaces of the metropolis

Photography as Criticism: Gabriele Basilico and the Project of a “Small Utopia”

The camera has been used as a tool of architectural representation since the mid-19th century. But can photography be rightly considered a form of criticism? Affirmative answers are suggested by the works of several architects who have embraced this medium to explore the built environment and reflect upon its material and social conditions. Indeed, the writer and photographer Eric de Maré went as far as pronouncing that the photographer was possibly the best architectural critic. In the late-20th century, a key role was played by Gabriele Basilico, who set out to depict the mutation of urban landscapes under the effects of deindustrialisation. Working for magazines as well as for public institutions, the late Italian photographer developed an analytical method that allowed him to probe the complexity of cities as human habitats. The paper revisits Basilico’s early work and discusses its relevance to architectural criticism. It argues, with reference to a series of photographic journeys that span from the 1970s to the 1990s, that his landscape vision was integral to a wider rethinking of the built environment. Driven by a relentless pursuit of harmony, Basilico sought out an intimate relation with places while eschewing the eulogistic rhetoric that dominated in the architectural press. His contemplative images contain the seeds of what he called a “small utopia”: a personal quest nourished by critical dialogues with writers, journalists and architects

‘A Dynamic Attitude of the Gaze’: Gabriele Basilico’s Sense of Vertical Space

High-rise architecture has provided a popular vantage point for urban photographers since the turn of the millennium. Amidst the diffusion of aerial imagery obtained from airborne cameras, the embodied view from above has witnessed a parallel revival. This mode of representation harks back to the early twentieth century when the modern city became a field of exploration for avant-garde photographers in pursuit of a ‘new vision’, as epitomised by Aleksander Rodchenko’s radical high-angle shots which captured Moscow’s spatial patterns from uncustomary perspectives. Eight decades later, the Italian photographer Gabriele Basilico revisited the Russian capital and produced a photo-book, Vertiginous Moscow (2008), that made reference to Rodchenko’s work. Basilico embraced the vue en plongée to depict the city of and from the Seven Sisters, the monumental towers built under Stalin after World War II. Multiple layers that constitute Vertiginous Moscow are unpacked here with a focus on the photographer’s sense of verticality, which he succinctly described as ‘a dynamic attitude of the gaze’. This attitude was not limited to the depiction of urban spaces from high vantage points but engaged a broader set of temporal relations with the city’s past – as well as intimations of possible futures

Guest Editors’ Introduction: Towards a Vertigology of Contemporary Cities

In this introduction, the guest editors set out the contextual and theoretical rationale for the Special Issue: Vertigo in the City. It begins with some basic definitions and uses of the term vertigo, before tracing the relationship between vertigo and the environmental, emotional and representational landscape of the high-rise, high-density modern city. Drawn from a multidisciplinary research project which culminated in 2015, the six papers selected for the SI are then briefly described, highlighting contributions and intersections between the different papers. The introduction ends with a call for the development of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of vertigo, with a view to further opening up inter-disciplinary research in the future

The photogenic city: aerial photography and urban visions in Europe, 1914-1945

The thesis investigates the relationship between photography and urban visions in Europe in the period 1914-1945. It focuses in particular on the impact of the aerial gaze upon the ways in which the modern city was perceived and represented. The theoretical background for this inquiry is provided by contemporary debates on photography and visual culture, which are brought to bear on the study of urban representations. The main body of the argument is divided into three parts: 'Aerial Inspections', 'Aerial Imaginations', and 'Aerial Illustrations'. The first part discusses the urban imagery produced within the field of air reconnaissance photography, with particular regard to World War II. The second part charts the rise of an aerial imagination in avant-garde photography, which reconfigured the city as the site and subject of a modern way of seeing. The third part looks at how 'applied' aerial photography was instrumental to illustrate urban visions across various discursive fields, namely tourism, journalism, and urbanism; this section concludes with a case study on the aerial imagery of interwar London, based on the production of a leading air survey company. Besides pinpointing the modes of representation specific to each of these practices, the thesis also describes the traffic of images and the flow of meanings that occurred across their boundaries. It is finally argued that a new urban visuality was the result of the procedures introduced by aerial photography; the photogenic city emerged as a contested field of representation marked out by an underlying tension between spectacle and surveillance

Travels in Architectural History

"Travel": Special collection 2016-2017 for the EAHN open access journal, Architectural Histories. 10 original essays stemming from an international call for papers; all double-blind peer reviewed following a pre-selection. This Special Collection explores how travel, as a collective and individual practice, has been implicated in diverse architectural cultures across a wide range of periods and geographies. It offers new perspectives on the architect’s journey, examines representations of places by travellers, and considers the place of architecture within modern tourist itineraries and practices. Travel is a powerful force in shaping the perception of the modern world and plays an ever-growing role within architectural and urban cultures. Inextricably linked to political and ideological issues, travel redefines places and landscapes through new transport infrastructures and buildings. Architecture, in turn, is reconstructed through visual and textual narratives produced by scores of modern travellers – including writers and artists along with architects themselves. In the age of the camera, travel is bound up with new kinds of imaginaries; private records and recollections often mingle with official, stereotyped views, as the value of architectural heritage increasingly rests on the mechanical reproduction of its images. Whilst students often learn about architectural history through image collections, the place of the journey in the formation of the architect itself shifts. No longer a lone and passionate antiquarian or an itinerant designer, the modern architect eagerly hops on buses, trains and planes in pursuit of personal as well as professional interests. Increasingly built on a presumption of mobility, architectural culture integrates travel into cultural debates and design experiments. By addressing such issues from a variety of perspectives, this collection prompts us to rethink the mobile conditions in which architecture has historically been produced and received

Moscow vertigo

The paper explores the relationship between photography and architecture as a mutually constitutive one. Besides standing as subjects for the camera, buildings can also extend the photographer’s capability to depict the surrounding landscape. In the interwar period, this interplay was exploited by avant-garde photographers associated with the “New Vision” who used architecture as a viewing platform. Among them was Aleksander Rodchenko, whose experiments with high-angle shots were part of the wider project to construct a revolutionary visual language for Soviet art. Moscow was the theatre of this visual revolution. Eight decades later, Italian photographer Gabriele Basilico visited the Russian capital and produced a photo-book, Mosca Verticale, that references Rodchenko’s work in more than one way. Atypically, Basilico elevated the vue en plongée to his main framing device as he set out to depict the sprawling city from the Seven Sisters –the monumental high-rise towers built under Stalin between the late 1940s and the mid 1950s. Through considering Basilico’s words as well as his pictures, the essay unpacks the multiple layers that constitute Mosca Verticale. It draws connections not only with the work of Rodchenko but also with that of Russian “rooftoppers” who, in recent years, have raised the vertiginous representation of the city to new heights. As a cluster of “supertall” buildings redesigns its skyline, Moscow is once again the European epicentre of a particular type of interaction between photography and architecture, whereby the latter serves as a platform to visualise the dizzying spaces of the metropolis