The fragment uses an inherent disruption of legibility to expose what is at stake in the construction of a generic image. The implication is that all object (or referent) presence within an image is fluid or fugitive, subject to the actions of the chemical medium. The fragment’s ‘archival’ quality also fundamentally confuses the location of the referent in time (is it past, present or future?). The article sets up a dialectical relationship between the fragment – which unequivocally expresses the actions of the medium, foregrounding the process of making and thus the role of the author – with a generic norm that works precisely to eradicate all signs of process within the creation of an image that supports the fiction of unmediated photographic realism. On receiving the published article the architects felt that the fragment photographs contained an implicit criticism of their work along the lines that the building was somehow overly nostalgic and reliant on the work of mid-twentieth century precedents. The architect’s misreading of our intentions registers two things: the sensitivity of the profession to the role of photography in presenting its work, and an instinctive distrust of any image that develops aesthetic autonomy from the architectural design. It also reveals how architects understand photography to be the dominant medium of discourse within architectural journals, that the photographic image alone is capable of formulating an article’s critical position independent of the text. The Toh-Shimazaki article revealed the potential discomfort of a renegotiation of the implicit professional covenant between architect, writer, photographer and editor, through its shift in the style of photographic documentation. The imperative to challenge the dominant mode of architectural photography lies not simply in the potential to reveal something different about architecture and the life of buildings, but also to enable reflection on the way architectural and media professionals perceive their roles, establish the terms of collaboration and understand the value of their work. c
this page: while Green’s fragment images were used on the cover, the images used for the building study itself were Green’s more conventional medium-format colour photography. opposite page: Green’s fragment images showing the botanical and landscape context of the OSH house, unused in the AJ article.
Nigel Green
A house in the Surrey countryside by London- based practice Toh-Shimazaki Architects was published with then AJ editors, Andrew Mead and Sarah Douglas, during a short-lived period of experimentation with the conventions of representation. This was the result of a re-launch of the journal by the London-based, design agency APFEL (A Practice for Everyday Life). APFEL, who have also worked on signage and identity designs for clients such as the British Council, Tate and the V&A, reformed the journal’s graphic identity and layout, and also engaged with AJ staff in a significant reconceptualisation of the relationship between image and text. Our Toh-Shimazaki article focused extensively on the landscape context of the house and drew on the architects’ own imagery of site investigation and design process (maps, sketches, montage, models and snapshot photography). The prehistory of the building – the building as an idea, as a process and as a contextual entity on both intentional and unconscious levels – was strongly represented. Two distinct modes of photographic representation were used for the building itself: orthodox medium-format colour photography, and fragment photographs. The latter derive from a method that Green developed in his art practice, involving a deliberately excessive use of the processing chemicals of analogue photography to create contingent effects of staining and solarisation, plus a physical tearing of images into fragments. Fragments of the exterior of the building were used on the cover of the journal, whilst more orthodox photography of the interior was used within the article itself.
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