Salk Overcast: Looking down the axis on an overcast day at the Salk Institute by Louis Kahn in La Jolla.
Salk Side Court: A detail of the light in one of the side courts at the Salk Institute by Louis Kahn, in La Jolla. The hazy light brought out all of the patina in the concrete walls.
Getty Villa Stairs: Looking up the steps by the bookstore at the Getty Villa in Malibu. Machado and Silvetti did this section of the building, and used an "archeological'" concept — note the left of the image, where the material changes as a stratification over the vertical dimension of the project.
Getty Villa Statue and Pool: Looking down the axis of the pool at the Getty Villa in Malibu, complete with some bone-chilling fog.
Getty Grid Cavities: Near sunset at the Getty. Notice again the coding of the stone, rough on the outer shell, smoothly dressed on the inside (with the cool rough stones left in the surface for figural effect!).
Getty Stair and Column: Another wonderful "stair moment" at the Getty Center in Brentwood, by Richard Meier.
Marfans: Looking at a Dan Flavin installation: Untitled (Marfa Project) in Marfa, TX.
Flavin Light Joint: When the fluorescent lights move from green to orange, there's a waffle in the light. I am not sure if this is due to the repeated fluorescent lights, or if it is a pattern from the different light frequencies.
Flavin Tribute to the Green Monster Feeling Blues Coming On: Looking back out of one of the barrels of green light. Note the blue light coming from the adjacent barrel, but pay particular attention to the "light joint" between the blue and the green on the far wall. There's a ripple pattern that emerges from the physics of the light.
LA Live Paving RCH: Looking across the paving at LA Live done by Rios Clementi Hale Studios, moving along ideas started in other projects like the Grand Avenue project.
De Young Abstracted: Looking down at the courtyard that holds the door to the sculpture garden.
Arabian Corner Tall: Looking at the south "facade" (with "fence") of the Arabian Library, by Richärd + Bauer, in Scottsdale, AZ.
St Louis Arch Crossing: A vapor trail goes by the arch in St Louis. Thanks, Mr. Saarinen.
Arch Tall Split: Looking up at the St. Louis Arch by Eero Saarinen. This was the winner of the competition for the Gateway Expansion Memorial (a former instructor of mine took second place!) It wasn't a competition for a structure.
Arch Wide Split: Looking up from the ground at the St. Louis Arch, by Eero Saarinen. (If you get a chance to visit, make sure to see the movie about how it was built: a project in itself.)
Hadrian On Axis: Looking down and through the Canopus at the arch in between the trabeation.
Hadrians Column Statue Pool: Close-up of some of the statuary and columns remaining at the Canopus.
Outside Entry Panorama FLAT: The ticket office to the Disney Concert Hall, building by Frank Gehry.
Shigeru Ban 1-1: Community Center in Kun Ming by Shigeru Ban, with a plaza (I think) by SWA. Note the green roof on the left.
Park Bathroom: Bathrooms in Chaparral Park in Scottsdale, AZ, within the Indian Bend Wash. The park is by Ten Eyck Landscape Architects. Swaback is listed as a consultant, so I assume they are the architects of this structure.
"Cloudgate" by Anish Kapoor.
OMA Leeum Inside: Looking into the Office for Metropolitan Architecture's wing of the Leeum–Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul. This is a fascinating design, of course, with fluid spaces that work well in this context. The design effectively deals with a sloping site, and cleverly unites the Mario Botta and Jean Nouvel designs it abuts to make one spatial experience.
Goldsworthy Storm King Bend: Looking back up the slope at Andy Goldsworthy's "Storm King Wall" at the Storm King Art Center. While the trees looked somewhat straight up and down going downhill, all of them appear to bend like crazy on the upslope view.
UCSD Library: Looking at the library, by William Pereira, at the UCSD Campus. It's like a spaceship. It sits on a high point of the campus with axes going to it. The figural shape of the building gets read against the backdrop of sky.
DC Office Space Full Desk Looking at the desk and the elevator entry.
Fix Ortho: Looking at Fix restaurant in the Bellagio.
IIT Facade Detail 3: Up-close detail of the west wall. Note how the cells, as you get close, make the wall seem to bulge.
Turrell Lavender Intense: Towards the end of the show, the colors get saturated to emphasize the coming "gravity" of the sky beyond.
Serra Pulitzer: "Joe" by Richard Serra at The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. According to the foundation's website, Serra says "When you walk between the walls, you become implicated in the tremendous spiraling force of the movement. The velocity projects you ahead into an open interior space which frames the sky. Joe cannot be grasped as a gestalt or image. The sculpture is understood behaviorally as a function of time."
Serra Schunnemunk Fork: A detail of a Richard Serra sculpture in NY. Welcoming a 5D to the family — unbelievably low noise.
Schummenunk Elevation: Looking at the end elevation of Richard Serra's "Schummenunk Fork" at the Storm King Art Center.
Serra versus Pelli: Looking at Richard Serra's scuplture at the Orange County Center with the Cesar Pelli tower in the background (there's also a Peter Walker fountain). At the building in the lower right that's cut off you'll find California Plaza by Isamu Noguchi. Quite a packed area for famous design and artists to be putting their works.
EisenmannEscher: Looking down one of the paths coming through the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, at Ohio State.
St Peters Dome Cut: Looking up at the dome at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, by Michelangelo and others.
Cornerstone Delaney Near Birch: Topher Delaney's garden at Cornerstone Festival of Gardens. It's a bit beaten up here after the rains, as were all the other gardens. The ground here is usually "white" with crushed oyster shells. Basically, it's a commentary on mass consumption and consumerism: the white ground, trees, and canvas on the three sides not pictured here (though you can see the shadow). The wall in the back is made of plastic lumber, a crass bar code dominating this empty scene.
Sundial Bridge Spike Tight: Santiago Calatrava's bridge in Redding, CA.
Goldstein Lautner: A view across the upstairs living area at the Goldstein Residence, by John Lautner. Notice in the middle left that he's been training the outdoor plants to come the inside and grow.
San Jose City Hall Gap: Looking down the gap between the screen and the main floors of the tower at the San Jose City Hall by Richard Meier. It's not a white building!
China Pilaster Strip Mall: A pilaster in a strip mall outside of the Stone Forest. Incredible design, incredible to see it in a strip mall, and interesting to see that the only detail on the column is not on the base or the top, but right in the middle.
My previous slideshow for Places focused on found landscapes — for the most part the photographs were of scenes and places I happened upon in the course of travels — a scattering of eucalyptus leaves, an assortment of mining machinery, a grain silo in the Midwest.
The photographs here are studies in the relationship of architecture and landscape architecture to photography — a kind of research into how to see works of design. I take photographs in order to explore how photography can test architecture and landscape architecture, and vice versa.
Architecture and photography can disturb the assumptions of each discipline.
Through taking pictures I explore how I might become a better designer. Photography heightens my awareness of the perceptual aspects of buildings and landscapes. In contrast, the process of architectural design is mostly devoted to exploring the work in progress through conceptual drawings such as plans or sections. Drawings demand responses; many decisions must be made to make a drawing function as a communicative composition; but these can often lead us away from what will be the reality of the built work. Constant connection to perception through photography keeps me aware of the implications of what I draw in plan and section, and I use this perception of place as a defining metric for design decisions.
I also use architecture and photography to disturb the assumptions of each discipline. In the photographs presented here, I examine the interplay between the two-dimensional realm of the image and the three-dimensions of architectural space. By questioning the line between the two, I test the capacity of photography to imply space beyond the picture plane, and this enhances my capacity to assemble architectural compositions that follow rules of photographic composition.
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