David Goldblatt photograph

David Goldblatt and the Indeterminate Landscape

Ella Mudie

David Goldblatt’s long career of photographing incomplete or demolished architectures deconstructs the vision of South Africa as “empty” according to European and colonial schemas — even as his images express an ambivalent postcolonial sense of belonging to that “empty” land.

The South African David Goldblatt spent seven decades photographing the still-unfinished project of building equitable cities, towns, and infrastructures in his nation — and beyond.

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  • Naomi Stead
  • Belmont Freeman

David Heymann

David Heymann is a columnist for Places. He is an architect, and the Harwell Hamilton Harris Regents Professor in Architecture at the University of Texas, Austin.

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Gabrielle Esperdy

Gabrielle Esperdy is a columnist for Places. She is associate professor of architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

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Naomi Stead

Naomi Stead is a columnist for Places. She is an architecture critic and Head of Architecture at Monash University.

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Belmont Freeman

Belmont Freeman is a columnist for Places. He is principal of Belmont Freeman Architects, an award-winning design firm in New York City.

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History of the Present

Cities in Transition

History of the Present focuses on cities facing profound social, political, and environmental challenges.

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