Introduction
The photos that follow were taken independently throughout the year 2021.
They represent the culmination of a practice of more than a decade in the fields of architecture, architectural visualization and photography. Their selection and assembly responds to the specific circumstance of the Swiss Art Awards 2022, area Art. All photos were taken with a Canon AE-1 camera loaded with Kodak Portra 400 film. The lens used was a Canon 50mm F1.4 FD SSC. The film was developed and scanned by a Basel-based laboratory.
A PHOTO ESSAY BY LEANDRO VILLALBA
Biography
1987 Birth, Montevideo, Uruguay
2012 Architect, MA, FADU, Udelar
2017 - 2019 Collaboration with Christ & Gantenbein
2020 - Collaboration with Buchner Bründler
PART I BEYOND THE ICON
Theme
Why revisit the modern classics? Why seek for what has already been extensively documented in print and digital media?
Perhaps because of a personal fetishistic attraction?, maybe because of a phenomenological - and therefore non-transferable - experience?
But what can be really found at the margins of architectural icons? These ponderous academic constructions seem to have little more to offer. But still among their rigorous columns, in their basements and residual spaces, behind their curtains, new readings can emerge.
This first part raises questions about the nature of well-known architectural pieces, and seeks through photography to expand their aesthetic possibilities.
Beyond the icon 3
Beyond the icon 4
Beyond the icon 5
Beyond the icon 6
Beyond the icon 7
Beyond the icon 8
Beyond the icon 9
PART II AT THE EDGES
Theme
Through a relatively narrow 50mm lens it is difficult to capture a complete architectural piece. Immediacy and intimacy are a forced result that places us at a tangible, almost erotic distance from the oeuvre.
The second part examines the places where the buildings end, the physical boundaries that define their limits. This is a photographic exercise on depth, framing and in-between spaces.
At the edges 11
At the edges 12
At the edges 13
At the edges 14
At the edges 15
At the edges 16
At the edges 17
At the edges 18
Author
3, 17 4, 16, 18 5 6, 7, 9, 12, 13 11 14 15
Casa Vacchini Costa
Siedlung Brunnadern Siedlung Halen Haus Leutert Fondation Maeght Franziskushaus Nostra Signora della Misericordia
Livio Vacchini Atelier 5 Atelier 5 Ernst Gisel Josep Luis Sert Otto Glaus
Angelo Mangiarotti
Location
Tenero-Contra, Ticino Bern Halen, Bern Zürich Saint-Paul-de-Vence Dulliken Baranzate, Milano
Year 1992 1970 1961 1961 1964 1968 1958
Page/s oeuvre
19
