Architecture, photography, and the contemporary past

To think about modern architecture must be to pass back and forth between the question of space and the question of representation. [… M]odern architecture only becomes modern with its engagement with the media. – Beatriz Colomina

More than any of the material traces left behind by the last two hundred years of profound historical change, architecture and photography contribute both to our contemporary skyline and to our image of the past. Their common history thus provides an indispensable background to every discussion of what is commonly – all too commonly, perhaps – referred to as cultural heritage.


Architecture, photography, and the contemporary past, with Claes Caldenby, Julia Tedroff & Martin Farran-Lee (Stockholm: Art & Theory, 2014), ISBN 978–91–981573–5–2. Read my contribution here or borrow the entire book at the library.