On January 15, 2013, illustrious architect and photographer Balthazar Korab (1926-2013) lost his prolonged battle with Parkinson’s disease. Although he managed to keep a low profile throughout most of his life, Korab was one of the most prolific and celebrated architectural photographers of midcentury modernism.
The Hungarian-born, Paris-trained architect emigrated to the United States in 1955 after working throughout Europe as an apprentice with a number of notable architects, such as Le Corbusier. Shortly after arriving, he landed a job in the famed office of Eero Saarinen, where be began experimenting with photography. It was here that he discovered his talent for architectural photography and began his career as an architectural photographer by capturing the masterworks of Eero Saarinen.
Throughout his life he documented masterworks of the world’s most influential architects, including Mies van der Rohe’s S. R. Crown Hall, Le Corbusier’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, Louis Kahn’s Kimbell Art Museum and Salk Institute, Minoru Yamasaki’s World Trade Center, Richard Meier’s Douglas House, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, and Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House, among many others.
Recently published by the Princeton Architectural Press is the riveting illustrated biography, “Balthazar Korab: Architect of Photography” by John Comazzi, that traces his circuitous path to a career in photography.
