AR Reading List 029: the printed image

We are coming to the close of our September issue, a rare exception in the field of architectural publishing for the sheer scarcity of images to be found between its pages. The infinite repositories of the internet have, in the meantime, continued to brim with the immanently replicable image – and as our October issue brings us back into a long-held relationship with the architectural image, this week’s reading list reflects on the printing, publication and dissemination of visual material.

In Catherine Slessor’s essay for our July/August issue on Criticism, she traces a history of how images have been published and propagated, from the tightly-controlled freemasonry of the pre-digital era to the ‘content tsunami’ of the online platform, as the role of the prosumer comes to rival that of the magazine editor in the ability to curate and disseminate, and the new goliaths of digital publication are established. ‘Through the endless on-ness of the internet’ she writes, ‘these publishing platforms collapse time and engorge content, so their “readers” (though they are more like consumers or voyeurs) can have everything here, now, always, forever.’

As copyright becomes blurred and content is increasingly paid for in attention and ad views rather than cash, the question of how images are valued and understood becomes increasingly urgent.

Image rights and wrongs: architecture in the age of infinite reproduction, Catherine Slessor, AR July/August 2020
‘Online image platforms are now essentially content tsunamis. If you punch #architecture into Instagram it brings up over 130 million images. That sound you hear is Walter Benjamin whirring in his grave; his famous cathedral has not just left its locale to be received into the art lover’s studio, it has been completely and decisively atomised’

Spreading the word: Victor Hugo’s Tumblr account, Davide Tommaso Ferrando, AR December 2018/January 2019
‘As the natural condition of digital images is, in fact, their multiplication and accumulation on the internet, giving life to only few of them means also killing the rest’

Manplan: the bravest moment in architectural publishing, Steve Parnell, AR March 2014
‘It is dark, both literally and figuratively. The late Robert Elwall, historian of architectural photography, was fond of saying that they even devised a special matt-black ink to print the issues. This ink sucks in light quite literally, in contrast with modern architecture’s preference for white space’

Ursula Schulz-Dornburg and the craze for images of Communist architecture, Tom Wilkinson, AR October 2016
‘These extraordinary pictures, which show strange forms of concrete and steel sprouting from deserted landscapes, gave birth to a genre that continues to flourish’

How Hélène Binet’s photographs changed the way we look at architecture, Mark Pimlott, AR March 2019
‘The sensitivity of her images suggested that her concerns resided beyond formal composition and were directed towards a deeper understanding of the specific nature of her architectural subjects’

Nick Hedges’ photographs for Shelter, Tim Abrahams, AR December 2014
‘On one hand you have the Evans who established the whole field of photojournalism and the way it prioritises the impact of events on the human face and figure. But then on the other, you have the Evans who examined the language of modernity: cars, billboards and buildings, recasting them as complex expressions of human endeavour’

Dennis Gilbert: letter to a young architect, Dennis Gilbert, AR September 2020
‘All parameters that make up a colour image can now be carefully controlled to suit the user. It is like an unmarked canvas for the painter or a blank sheet of paper for the writer’