Photography, the Cinderella of Architectural Archives?
Valeria Carullo, RIBA Photographs Curator
‘The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera’ -
Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), American documentary photographer and photojournalist
A premise to this paper: as its subject is photographs in archives, I have specifically focussed on analogue images rather than digital ones.
At various stages during its almost 200-year history photography has struggled to be ‘taken seriously’. Valued from the very beginning for its accuracy in recording a subject and its speed of execution compared to drawing, it soon fell under suspicion for the very same reasons. Even an early enthusiast like John Ruskin subsequently became diffident towards photography because of its mechanical nature, which contradicted his definition of art as a product of human endeavour. Architects in the 19th century were quick to realise photography’s potential to record their work and to provide them with endless representations of architecture from all over the world as sources of inspiration. And what could have been better than showing a portfolio of photographs of their work to a prospective client, who may have struggled to understand architectural drawings?
The RIBA had also started collecting photographs to document its members’ work and the work of architects from overseas; it soon started acquiring images of historical architecture that were part of archives donated by its members. Photographs, however, were the first items to be dispensed of when storage space became an issue at the beginning of the following century.
At this time photographers were striving to get their craft recognised as art, but the only way they knew how to do that was to imitate established visual arts such as drawing and painting. In the 1920s, however, avant-garde artists in central Europe and the United States started challenging preconceived notions of art; inspired by abstraction, the moving image and technological innovations in the medium itself, they hailed photography as the principal artistic expression of the modern era and affirmed its role as an independent art, with its own visual language. This new photography found an easy alliance with modern architecture, and architects started realising the medium’s capacity not only to record and document but also to interpret and to communicate ideas.
At this time, during the 1930s, the RIBA for the first time started to actively acquire photographs of contemporary architecture, encouraged by the great success of its ‘International Architecture’ exhibition of 1934, which featured mainly large format photographs. In subsequent decades the Institute’s interest in the medium waned, and while the first curator of drawings was appointed in 1954, it was only in 1981 that a dedicated RIBA Photographs Collection was created and its first curator appointed: Robert Elwall (1953-2012), the historian of architectural photography and author of the seminal book Building with Light: The International History of Architectural Photography.
In our own times, photography in architectural archives still plays the role of Cinderella – often undervalued and left behind, rarely at the ball. Here are a few reasons, conscious or otherwise, that affect our perception of the medium:
Photographs are, in most cases, not the work of the architect
They are not the result of a centuries-old art
They are, by their own nature, not unique – they come in multiple copies, and therefore do not possess the same ‘aura’ as drawings
They appear to replicate ‘reality’ so closely that they risk deceiving the viewer into thinking that they understand the building without visiting it
Some of these prejudices are as old as the medium itself: drawing requires skill and time, photography is EASY – just point the camera, press the shutter… et voila!
This apparent lack of effort and the current proliferation of photographs of the built environment contributes to a certain view of architectural photography as a temporarily useful but ultimately irrelevant discipline. Even now that photographers of architecture such as Thomas Struth and Candida Höfer are highly valued by the art market, architectural photography is still often seen as a purely commercial enterprise. And despite the fact that every major museum and art gallery in London regularly stages photography exhibitions (even the National Gallery has recently dipped its toes into the murky waters of photography with their exhibition Seduced by Art: Photography Past and Present, National Gallery, 2013) there is still resistance within the RIBA itself towards purely photographic exhibitions.
I would like to point out, then, a number of reasons why photographs should at long last achieve due recognition of their unique contribution to architectural discourse and acquire their well-deserved status as equal to any other medium in architectural archives:
1. Despite their vulnerability (as a result of the chemicals present in the paper) they survive more easily than drawings. They are often the only records we have of lost buildings
2. They contribute hugely to our knowledge of the history of the built environment – could we really imagine what Paris at the beginning of the 20th century looked like, beyond its great monuments, squares and boulevards, if it wasn’t for Eugène Atget’s (1857-1927, French pioneer of documentary photography) photographs?
Nuremberg seen from the Burg looking towards St Sebald (1880s) In 1945 the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Forces systematically bombed the city, destroying about ninety percent of the medieval centre RIBA Collections
3. As pointed out by the great contemporary photographer Hélène Binet (Swiss-French architectural photographer based in London), photographs can be displaced, put together, compared. This makes them a very useful tool in the study of architecture
4. Thanks to their ease of dissemination, they have, within their own limitations as two-dimensional objects, given an unprecedented contribution to the knowledge of architecture and communication of ideas within the architectural community
5. They can record the context, phases of construction and transformations of a building much more effectively than drawings
Construction of an arch inside one of the new transepts, Anglican Cathedral, Liverpool (1930), Architect: Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, Photographer: Stewart Bale, Architectural Press Archive/RIBA Collections
6. They can show the role that light plays outside and inside buildings
Hillfield (House A), Whipsnade Zoo Estate (1936), Architect: Lubetkin & Tecton, Photographer: Herbert Felton, RIBA Collections
7. They can help us understand how people use buildings
Children's playground, Pepys Estate, Deptford, London (1969), Architects: Greater London Council. Department of Architecture & Civic Design, Photographer: Tony Ray-Jones, Tony Ray-Jones/RIBA Collections
8. They are, as is widely acknowledged, more effective than any other medium at communicating architecture to a lay audience
9. They can comment on, praise and critique a building, and be powerful social documents
10. As creations of an ‘outsider’s vision, they can reveal previously unnoticed aspects and details of a building, and therefore also inspire the design process
We could then ask… why are we still, well into the 21st century, questioning the role that photography plays in the study and understanding of architecture?
Among other reasons, I’m afraid that ignorance still plays its part – didn’t László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), the great 20th century Hungarian avant-garde artist (painter, photographer, designer), theorist and Bauhaus teacher, say that ‘The illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as the pen’?
