At the dawn of photography the city could only be recorded as a virtually empty stage by a camera lens too slow to fix for posterity the vitality of urban life.  Even before the new art of photography – literally writing with light – was announced in 1839 in Paris, the City of Light, Daguerre had pioneered street photography by capturing a view of the Boulevard du Temple through the double aperture of his window and his camera lens.  This first urban daguerreotype. captured perfectly the city’s architecture, but this man soon to be famous for portraiture left us scarcely a trace of the bustling traffic of that spring 1838 morning, all human presence was vanquished, save a blurry pair of men, a shoe shiner and a customer, who remained still long enough to be captured as a smudge on the otherwise pristine scene.  By the end of the century the camera was able to capture motion even below the threshold of human perception, making it a tool for the scientific study of human and animal locomotion.

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The spire of the Notre Dame cathedral, destroyed during the fires of 2019, will be restored according to the original 19th-century Gothic design, as reported by French President Emmanuel Macron. Built in 1860, to replace the original structure removed in 1792, the spire, not exactly a medieval structure, was designed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc who found inspiration in the original architectural epoch of the Cathedral.

Due to the global pandemic, restoration works of the Notre Dame in Paris have been paused. For security reasons, all operations have been halted by French officials. While the consolidation of the cathedral was completed, the reconstruction of the spire and the roof as well as the removal of the melted scaffolding, have been interrupted.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped urban life, and so too has it left many streets and buildings empty as people practice social distancing. From Times Square to the Place de la Concorde in Paris, photographers are capturing these "empty cities" in a defining moment across the globe. In turn, The New York Times recently published a piece dubbed "The Great Empty", showcasing a new side to urban life in these structures and streets. Now five photographers have been commissioned to photograph Rotterdam during the pandemic.

Calls to quarantine and social distancing throughout the world, in response to the novel coronavirus, have left unique and historical postcards: the cloudy canals of Venice are now crystal clear and the satellite images of China show a significant decrease in pollution. The renowned photographer Erieta Attali, with her phone in hand, was able to walk through the empty streets of Paris and portray, under her signature gaze, the French capital in isolation.

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Architecture is mostly known through representations. Even today, when traveling is no longer rare or just for the rich, buildings and places are mostly disseminated and appreciated through images. In that sense, photography has been—and still is—paramount to architecture. The following interview delves into Erieta Attali’s work and the relationship to both architecture and landscape through the lens of her camera. With over two decades of experience, shooting and teaching all over the world, the Israeli photographer reflects on the origins and evolution of her renown practice.

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Foster + Partners have joined a series of design offices that will enter the international competition to design a replacement spire for Notre Dame Cathedral. As reported by The Times, Foster has said that the new addition can be focused around "light" for the cathedral’s ruined roof. After the fire partially destroyed the iconic cathedral, France now aims to move forward with plans to renovate the iconic structure.