Epics: Photography, Architecture, and the Problem of Realism
Jesús Vassallo
Park Books
English
Hardcover
First Edition
328 pages
170 × 240 mm
2020
ISBN 9783038601623
Through its analysis of a series of collaborations between architects and photographers, Epics in the Everyday proposes an alternative history of both modern architecture and documentary photography. It traces the evolution of the ever-changing and sometimes violent dialectic between abstraction and realism. Consistently, the subject matter of these collaborations is the anonymous built environment, which in different ways presents both architects and artists with a mirror that challenges their self-image. Architecture and photography are both semi-autonomous disciplines, suspended between the fine arts and the utilitarian, and because of this condition they tend to give for granted their relationship with reality: as soon as a building is inhabited, it becomes the backdrop for human drama, just like a photograph, the moment it is taken, is considered an automatic record of whatever was there at the time. Why then the fixation of these architects and photographers with precisely that which makes their art less like art?
(source: https://jesusvassallo.com/Epics)
About the Artist
Jesús Vassallo is a Spanish architect and a professor of architecture at Rice University, where he leads the Affordable Housing Lab. Based in Houston and Madrid, his work for private clients and institutions ranges from architecture to urban design, with a consistent emphasis on construction and design excellence. Areas of focus include affordable housing, low-carbon construction technology, adaptive reuse, and public-interest design. His projects have been published and exhibited internationally, including in the Venice and Chicago Biennials.
jesusvassallo.com
(source: https://jesusvassallo.com/About)
About the Publisher
Park Books is a European publishing house for architecture and related fields, and an international platform for architectural book projects. Park Books has been established in 2012 as an affiliate of the renowned art, photography, and architectural publishers Scheidegger & Spiess in Zürich and likewise attaches great importance to the design and material quality of its publications. The books are published predominantly in English and German and thanks to a competent and extensive sales and marketing network, our program is distributed worldwide. The company is independently owned and run by dedicated employees who bring their various strengths and experience to bear on their work.
park-books.com
(source: https://www.park-books.com/index.php?pd=pb&lang=en&page=about)
