does anyone know anything about photos of well-known Modernist works that were doctored, at the time, in order to remove context or adjacent buildings?
i recall reading something once that described how Modernists often doctored photos of their projects...typically b/c the architects didn't particularly like the context and felt it detracted from the appearance of their buildings.
i'm trying to find a particular example for my M.A. thesis...thanks
not quite M.A. material because its an architectural solution... However, when i visited the place with a Pittsburgh Architect she spoke about how Johnson's client tried to buy up all the adjacent buildings so PJ could fulfill his vision of at complete modernist aesthetic from any point in the plaza. well, there is one building at the edge of the plaza owned by somebody who wouldn't sell out, and PJ was furious about not completely wiping out the context...any photographs seem to cut that out...its barely there, but its there nonetheless. the story is hearsay but it wouldn't surprise me either.
There's this book "Mart Stam's trousers"
there's a picture of Le Corbusier and Philip Johnson I think before and after this guy, Mart Stam, was purportedly erased from the picture
the herzog and de mueron photos by thomas ruff are "doctored" - but that
was the point....he also did a series called l.m.v.d.r. on a series of mies buildings, the barcelona pavilion phot is amazing.
Reyner Banham's out-of-print but engaging book "Concrete Atlantis" looks at some of the grain elevators admired by Corbusier and Mendelsohn - and shows the real deal against the doctored photo in the modernist texts (if I remember correctly - its been ten years at least since I read the book).
Beatriz Colomina covers this in Privacy and Publicity... there were also a number of photos included in MOMA's so called International Style exhibition that had adjacent context masked out...
I don't think this practice of altering photographs to achieve a desired architectural image ended with the moderinists in the 1930s, as someone has already mentioned. They were probably the first ones to do it, then get busted for it. If you talked to an architectural photographer or two, you'd probably find this is not uncommon still... though the level of alteration likely varies.
And now, with the wonders of Photoshop, why worry about unattractive context?
Many of mies and corbu's photos were doctored. Use the relative fuzziness of the images from the early modern period to your advantage and look for building edges that seem too sharp. These are your suspect spots. I've also seen an image of Loos' Tristan Tzara house that was cropped short because it got built to different proportions than those Loos had designed.
photograph of terragni's casa del fascio with an enormous crowd matted in by removing buildings opposite (see frampton's modern architecture for the picture, although he may not have realised that the photo was edited)
tristan tzara house extension mentioned by bryan (see colomina, privacy and publicity)
loos interiors with views through windows matted in, and viola matted into niche of music room (also colomina)
image of corb and mies with mart stam removed (someone had a reference above)
corb's villa schwob with garden pregola edited out (colomina again)
sorry, I thought I had more. see colomina, anyway.
Photos of the Barcelona Pavilion
Check in Fear of Glass by Josep Quetlas.
Pg. 73/73, Mies gets rid of a tower popping out on top of the pavilion
then in pg.158 and 160 you can see in a different view, the flagposts a road and shadows of the neighbour structure deleted.
philip johnson edited the context out of mies's barcelona pavillion and tugendhat house for his international style book. without the landscaping, some of the moves in the house are not understood. for example, there is a big tree with a small picnic table that corresponds to mies's round eating area in the house [the only circle].
i think it was barry bergdoll that found these things out and has some article somewhere, but i'm not sure. i always confuse him with someone else.
I believe Reitveld's famous 'planar' house was actually built cheek-by-jowel with an industrial factory. The house is gone, and so is the factory. Every photo I have ever seen (except for one) shows the house as a stand-alone structure. I cannot recall where I saw the 'real life' image.
aml: The Barry Bergdol article re: Tugendhat's removed landscape is in the Mies in Berlin book, from the exhibition of the same name from a couple years ago.
Occupied by Nazis, American soldiers, left empty because of no money after the war, turned into a hay loft, earmarked for demolition to build a school for minute. AND THEN they airbrushed the cows out? OMG, for real.
The buildings we build owe a lot to this one whether you like it or not. Your outbuilding, too. I wonder if that outbuilding is as full of shit as its designer.
doctored Modernist photos
does anyone know anything about photos of well-known Modernist works that were doctored, at the time, in order to remove context or adjacent buildings?
i recall reading something once that described how Modernists often doctored photos of their projects...typically b/c the architects didn't particularly like the context and felt it detracted from the appearance of their buildings.
i'm trying to find a particular example for my M.A. thesis...thanks
How about Philip Johnson's erradication of context to fulfill his 'vision' in Pittsburgh's PPG Place:
http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/ppg/
not quite M.A. material because its an architectural solution... However, when i visited the place with a Pittsburgh Architect she spoke about how Johnson's client tried to buy up all the adjacent buildings so PJ could fulfill his vision of at complete modernist aesthetic from any point in the plaza. well, there is one building at the edge of the plaza owned by somebody who wouldn't sell out, and PJ was furious about not completely wiping out the context...any photographs seem to cut that out...its barely there, but its there nonetheless. the story is hearsay but it wouldn't surprise me either.
that miscreant building would be about 110 degrees left of this photograph:
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/johnsonburgee/ppgtowerentrance.jpg
Le Corbusier is known to have altered photos of the industrial forms and humble structures he otherwise admired in "Towards a New Architecture."
There's this book "Mart Stam's trousers"
there's a picture of Le Corbusier and Philip Johnson I think before and after this guy, Mart Stam, was purportedly erased from the picture
the herzog and de mueron photos by thomas ruff are "doctored" - but that
was the point....he also did a series called l.m.v.d.r. on a series of mies buildings, the barcelona pavilion phot is amazing.
Reyner Banham's out-of-print but engaging book "Concrete Atlantis" looks at some of the grain elevators admired by Corbusier and Mendelsohn - and shows the real deal against the doctored photo in the modernist texts (if I remember correctly - its been ten years at least since I read the book).
Beatriz Colomina covers this in Privacy and Publicity... there were also a number of photos included in MOMA's so called International Style exhibition that had adjacent context masked out...
one psychologically-driven outcome of too much time spent 'living in' renderings?
I don't think this practice of altering photographs to achieve a desired architectural image ended with the moderinists in the 1930s, as someone has already mentioned. They were probably the first ones to do it, then get busted for it. If you talked to an architectural photographer or two, you'd probably find this is not uncommon still... though the level of alteration likely varies.
And now, with the wonders of Photoshop, why worry about unattractive context?
Many of mies and corbu's photos were doctored. Use the relative fuzziness of the images from the early modern period to your advantage and look for building edges that seem too sharp. These are your suspect spots. I've also seen an image of Loos' Tristan Tzara house that was cropped short because it got built to different proportions than those Loos had designed.
notable examples of what you are looking for:
photograph of terragni's casa del fascio with an enormous crowd matted in by removing buildings opposite (see frampton's modern architecture for the picture, although he may not have realised that the photo was edited)
tristan tzara house extension mentioned by bryan (see colomina, privacy and publicity)
loos interiors with views through windows matted in, and viola matted into niche of music room (also colomina)
image of corb and mies with mart stam removed (someone had a reference above)
corb's villa schwob with garden pregola edited out (colomina again)
sorry, I thought I had more. see colomina, anyway.
Photos of the Barcelona Pavilion
Check in Fear of Glass by Josep Quetlas.
Pg. 73/73, Mies gets rid of a tower popping out on top of the pavilion
then in pg.158 and 160 you can see in a different view, the flagposts a road and shadows of the neighbour structure deleted.
philip johnson edited the context out of mies's barcelona pavillion and tugendhat house for his international style book. without the landscaping, some of the moves in the house are not understood. for example, there is a big tree with a small picnic table that corresponds to mies's round eating area in the house [the only circle].
i think it was barry bergdoll that found these things out and has some article somewhere, but i'm not sure. i always confuse him with someone else.
I believe Reitveld's famous 'planar' house was actually built cheek-by-jowel with an industrial factory. The house is gone, and so is the factory. Every photo I have ever seen (except for one) shows the house as a stand-alone structure. I cannot recall where I saw the 'real life' image.
aml: The Barry Bergdol article re: Tugendhat's removed landscape is in the Mies in Berlin book, from the exhibition of the same name from a couple years ago.
Le Corbusier had some cows airbrushed out of this. Does that count?
Buildings age. In other news, water is wet.
Yes, water is wet and this thing began leaking the day it was built.
Just curious, when was the last time you built a building with your own hands?
Its been several years ago. It was an outbuilding on my parents' property. Didn't leak then, doesn't leak now. You?
Occupied by Nazis, American soldiers, left empty because of no money after the war, turned into a hay loft, earmarked for demolition to build a school for minute. AND THEN they airbrushed the cows out? OMG, for real.
The buildings we build owe a lot to this one whether you like it or not. Your outbuilding, too. I wonder if that outbuilding is as full of shit as its designer.
An outbuilding. Alrighty then. You win. I'm sure it was really hard.
Why would I care in the least if the buildings you build owe a lot to the Villa Savoye? Have at it.
You care Volunteer. If you didn't you wouldn't be posting about it. T0
I'm just asking questions! Tucker Swanson style antagonism!
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