#ArchinectMeets is a series of interviews with members of the architecture community that use Instagram as a creative medium. With the series, we ask some of Instagram’s architectural photographers, producers and curators about their relationship to the social media platform and how it has affected their practice.
Social media has undeniably affected the way we perceive, interpret and share opinions about architecture today. Using our own account, @Archinect, as a site for image curation and news content, we wanted to ask fellow Instagram users how they navigated the platform as well as their thoughts on social media's impact on architecture.
We spoke with Joāo Carlos Alves, the curator of @joaocarlostalves. An architect born in Portugal and currently living and working in Geneva, Switzerland, he produces imaginative architectural renderings specifically for Instagram in his spare time. Sharing his detailed imagery to the platform several times a month, Alves relishes the freedom it affords over the typical restraints of an architecture firm.
What is your relationship to architecture? How did @joaocarlostalves begin?
I am a Portuguese architect working in Geneva. Architecture plays an important role in my life. @joaocarlostalves started as a personal page on Instagram (and still is one) but has evolved into a page where I post some reflections and dreams about architecture in my free time.
How would you describe the type of imagery you produce? What have you hoped to communicate about architecture or the built environment through your posts?
I have the ambition to inspire people through the worlds that I create. I see my work as a way of researching new languages and atmospheres in architecture and getting rid of some prejudices. With this work, I hope to make people dream.
Your Instagram seems to have shifted from photography to illustration. What led to this decision?
Working as an architect, I found myself often disappointed with the solutions (or lack of them) that architecture has to offer. I think that architecture has become more and more useless and it's mostly architects' fault.
View this post on InstagramFlamingo’s House
A post shared by João Carlos Alves (@joaocarlostalves) on
I started posting as a a way of saying that we can do things differently, answer not only to people's basic needs, but also stimulating their feelings and emotions through architecture. That's why I decided to start creating these images, thus producing a shift in the work I post.
Has Instagram (or social media in general) affected your views toward the profession?
The social media has the power to inspire people and I have come across with very interesting points of view.
Do you post your work anywhere else online? Is Instagram your social media channel of choice?
I only use Instagram and Pinterest.
What are some of your favorite Instagram profiles to follow?
Every day I come across with very interesting publications that for some reason catch my attention (because they make me dream, or because they surprise somehow, or for some particular detail ...).
View this post on InstagramFishing Village - Skyscrapers
A post shared by João Carlos Alves (@joaocarlostalves) on
There are a lot of interesting things nowadays in social media like Instagram or Pinterest or in specialized websites, and a large part of them with a lot of quality that it becomes difficult to choose one. Just to name some of my personal favorites for the moment:
platforms: @illustrarch, @subtilitas.site, @c_a_g_e and @critday
personal profiles: @izabombo, @hey.luisa and @fala.atelier
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