Beomsik WON takes photographs of urban buildings from different times and spaces, breaks them down into segments using digital techniques, and constructs collages to create familiar-looking, yet imaginary buildings. To make these “Archisculptures” as it is called, he carefully combines the segments taking into consideration the architectural size, space, and formative elements; he then places them against simple backgrounds, and lastly adds people or birds for the viewers to guess the size of the building. Although these strange buildings are products of the artist’s imagination, they show various styles of architectures throughout history.

• In the Archisculpture series, WON collaged the images of politically or socially important buildings in order to present a new interpretation of a city that operates like an enormous organism.
• He shows not only the history of the city but also the history of its people by revealing the surface of buildings that have been damaged due to natural weathering or historical incidents and then subsequently repaired.
• The Archisculpture, essentially a collage of history and people, is how the artist collects, classifies, and preserves the collective memory.

His images are digitally manipulated photographs of non-existent, fantastical buildings that appear to be real.

“You have a photography and arts background. Where did your interest in architecture originate from? What inspired you to launch the Archisculpture photo project?

My interest in architecture stems from its gigantic size and pragmatic functions. Whenever I see buildings of grand scale or interesting design I usually take photos, so I’ve got thousands of them. However, I couldn’t use those photos because even though I took them I thought it’s not my work but the architects’. Thus I decided to use them as material for my artworks.”

At first, he only made images in black and white, but then he realised that the real world is not b&w but coloured. So since then he has been making two version at the same time. He believes the black and white version is more surrealistic than colour one.

Image Analysis:

• Beomsik Won digitally manipulates and constructs buildings, compiling them together to create a completely new building. In this image he has combined an industrial machine, office buildings and  a cafe together.
• The layout of the image is very aesthetically pleasing, with many straight lines within the windows and walls, as well as the straight horizon behind the buildings.
• The buildings are placed to emphasise their different architectural sizes, levels and shapes, each level complementing each other.
• He combines the different types of buildings and structures to show the contrast between them and compiles them together into one structure to make it appear real and to show various styles of architectures throughout history.
• In the Archisculpture series, Won collaged the images of politically or socially important buildings in order to present a new interpretation of a city that operates like an enormous organism.
• He emphasises the history of the buildings  by showing the surface of buildings that have been damaged due to natural weathering or historical incidents.
• He took photos of the buildings from the same angles, or digitally manipulated them, so that they all fit together and face the same angle so they connected easily.
• He uses a simple background of a cloudy sky and a cobbled pavement to emphasise the building he created  and the present it in a place where a normal building wouldn’t be, not surrounded by anything.
• He takes the photos at different times of day so the lighting is different in each image. The glass window on the office building is reflecting white light , whereas the other buildings are not, emphasising how it is from the present-day as it is modern.

Influenced by the photographs of Edward Weston and Walker Evans, he began working with large-format cameras. Whereas most professional photographers had abandoned these cameras in favor of shooting on 35 mm film with more portable cameras, Nixon preferred the format because it allowed prints to be made directly from the large format negatives, retaining the clarity and integrity of the image.

His very first pictures are mostly architectural views of the city taken from rooftops and part of them were included in the “New Topographics” exhibition in 1975. “My idea at the time was to put my feelings in service to clear description. When I moved to Boston in 1974, I was enthralled with it and was trying to figure it out. Getting on rooftops was a great way to learn…not unlike the way one climbs to the top of a bluff or a mountain: to see more.”  He took photos from above, “like a landscape surveyor,” he said. “You could see where the streets go, you could see where everything lines up.”

Family Album, through May 2011. In Summer 2013 Nixon’s newest book will be released by Steidl. The body of work entitled Close Far explores the relationship of the self in physical and psychological proximity to the urban landscape. Nixon’s work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, among many others.

Thomas Struth began taking photographs of industrialised cities when he was studying under Bernd Becher (born 1931) at the Düsseldorf Academy.  He has continued to explore and develop the theme for almost twenty years, focusing his attention on such cities as New York, Tokyo, Berlin and Naples.  Struth’s images of the urban environment concentrate on seemingly unspectacular streets and public spaces. He seeks to record the face of urban space, seeing the architectural environment as a site where a community expresses its history.

This photo is taken in Via Giovanni Tappia, Naples 1989. Struth focuses his camera on the Neapolitan cityscape where he places the camera in the middle of the street at eye level. This creates a one-point perspective that leads the viewer’s eye down the street. It also results in the road being as much the focus of the scene as the apartment buildings on either side. There are few signs of the lives of the inhabitant, leaving no trace of their presence. Struth presents an image of a slightly scruffy, inner-city residential street which is filled with traces of activity and domestic life. This suggest that his images can be read as exploring differences in national character through the way urban space is inhabited.

In recording the urban environment, Struth deliberately refers to the tradition of black and white documentary photography, adopting a seemingly objective position. The compositions are simple and the photographs are neither staged nor digitally manipulated in post-production.  However, in spite of a link to the reportage tradition, Struth avoids both its snapshot approach and its quest for the capture of a fleeting, spontaneous image. Rather he carefully selects the sites where, using long exposures he makes sharply focused images.

Shinju-ku, (TDK), Tokyo 1986

Struth focuses on a busy intersection in urban Tokyo. He has taken the photograph from the middle of the road, pointing the camera down the street. As a result the spectator’s eye is drawn into the image and invited to inspect the architectural environment. The technique is one which Struth has employed in many of the street scenes since the late 1970s. However, unlike many similarly constructed images, the Tokyo photograph is not deserted. It is rather filled with people and movement, presenting an image of chaotic urban activity. The city that Struth presents is unregimented: there is little architectural unity. Because so much activity is included in the image, Struth is able to evoke the dynamic energy, speed and frenetic temporality characteristic of contemporary Japanese urban culture.