Photography & Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News

As remnants of the Industrial Age, the London gas holders are a fascinating presence across the urban landscape, one which is on the verge of disappearing. The photographic essay Ruin or Rust portrays the uncanny structures as the backdrop of everyday life, capturing their relationship to the urban context. The result of a two-year-long endeavor, this personal project of London-based photographer Francesco Russo frames the dialogue between these elements of the cityscape and the life going on around them, investigating their role in contemporary society and the urban fabric.

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The new Zoomed In virtual photography and architecture festival has launched this week. Running from 21st - 24th of April, the festival brings together a diverse international selection of architectural photographers and cross-disciplinary creatives in a series of online talks and discussions, short film screenings, image galleries, and a charity print sale to raise funds for those most in need during the current pandemic crisis.

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Architectural and fine art photographer Pygmalion Karatzas is presenting a number of free online architectural photography resources for readers to explore in the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. The selected resources include e-books, numerous interviews with renowned photographers from around the world, educational presentations (academic papers, lectures, workshops), and videos.

As author Jeremy Lent points out in a recent article, the phrase “social distancing” is helpfully being recast as “physical distancing” since this pandemic is bringing people closer together in solidarity than ever before, and we are witnessing a heartwarming rediscovery of the value of community, and humanity’s prosocial impulses like altruism and compassion manifesting across sectors and boundaries.

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.

Celebrate Bauhaus 100 through the world's number one visual storytelling platform, Instagram. An essential tool for designers, Instagram is a constantly growing digital database of market sharing and stimulation. Social media has changed not only how we gather precedents and market our designs, but also our designs themselves. "Instagram Culture" drives designers to create more shareable moments. As we continue to seek these dynamic encounters, let us not forget our forefathers of user experience design and the Bauhaus school.

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Because, for all the inspirational works across the world, we would be lost without the photographers dedicated to sharing this inspiration with us. Here we present to you the 50 most influential architectural photographs of the year.

If you're an architecture aficionado, the Colombian capital of Bogota should be high on your list. The city's architecture contains bits and pieces from throughout the country's history, from colonial structures to classical designs from the time of the Republic.

If you're a first time visitor to Bogotá —or a native tourist in your own city— we recommend this architecture guide for the top 10 locations to capture the city's best works.

After the first series of photographs revealing Madrid's architectural geometries, Joel Filipe shared his work with us again; this time the Into the Fog series. In these photographs, Filipe presents, through a layer of mist, well-known projects featuring the skyline of the Spanish capital.

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It is said that the world is increasingly developed when in fact it is, undeniably, more technological and globalized. However, it seems risky to talk about development when the advances do not appear everywhere or for all inhabitants.

In such an uneven picture, a select few of the global population enjoy these advances, while a huge number live below the poverty line.

Such contrasts often go unnoticed in the city's daily life, however, are set forth on a diptych relationship with the urban layout, being, at the same time the cause and consequence of deep marks in city design. In Brazil, for example, we have the slums and poor communities that contrast with the buildings and upper-middle-class homes architecture, designed and built with all the necessary resources.

The year's best architectural photos have been announced as winners of 2017 iPhone Photography Awards (IPPAWARDS). Founded in 2007 – the same year as the release of the first iPhone – IPPAWARDS is the first and longest running iPhone photography competition. Now in its 10th year, the awards continue to select the best images taken by iPhone, iPad or iPod touch from a variety of categories including Landscape, Animals, People, Still Life and Architecture.

This year’s architecture category was won by Paddy Chao for his photo of Chand Baori, one of the deepest stepwells in India. Second prize was awarded to Naian Feng for his shot of the red walls of Beijing's Forbidden City.

Continue after the break to see the winning and honorable mention photos.

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The following photo set by Fernando Guerra focuses on Boa Nova Tea House, a project by Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza Vieira. Completed in 1963, it was one of the first works done by the 1992 Pritzker Prize winner. Built on the rocks that hang over the sea in Leça da Palmeira, the tea house is in close proximity to another iconic project by the same architect, the Leça Swimming Pools, both classified as National Monuments in Portugal.

In this series, entitled Stacked, photographer Malte Brandenburg takes a closer look at the architectural merits of Berlin’s post-war housing estates. Captured against a flat blue sky, the images seek to strip away the historical and social burdens carried by the buildings, presenting them instead as pieces of pure architecture.

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With the participation of 96 pavilions from diverse countries around the world, the Expo Milan 2015 tackles one of the most pressing global issues -- alimentation -- through its theme “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life.”

The Brazilian Pavilion, designed by Studio Arthur Casas and Atelier Marko Brajovic, was considered one of the most attractive pavilions by the thousands of visitors who have passed through the Expo so far. Featuring a large open space traversed by an elevated net on which visitors can walk, the pavilion is as “as porous as the Brazilian culture,” and creates a pathway above plants native to the country.

Below is a beautiful series of photographs of the pavilion taken by Fernando Guerra, a partner at Últimas Reportagens, along with his brother Sérgio Guerra.

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