Presented by the Photography Department and the Historic Preservation Program at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

 

The practice of architectural photography has a dual nature: to provide documentation of the art form of architecture, while at the same time encouraging the photographer to approach the subject creatively. When they are at their best, architectural photographs are documents of a building’s mass and space, yet they require the creativity of the photographer to recreate the essential experience of three-dimensional form within the limits of two-dimensional rectangular images. The spirit of the architecture and its interpretation by the photographer can bring the essential aesthetic issues of a building to photographic imaging in genuinely 

effective and empathetic images.

 

This class brings together graduate and advanced-level undergraduate students from Canada, China, India, Japan, Russia, Taiwan and the United States, who are studying photography, historic preservation, architecture, interior architecture, sculpture, and film, video & new media. They have brought their experiences of building form and image-making together to create unique documents of the built environment of Chicago. Our exhibition includes images from class assignments and individual projects, demonstrating the breadth of their interests. 

 

The instructors, architectural photographer Kirk Gittings and preservationist and architectural historian Timothy Wittman, would like to thank the Photography Department at SAIC for their technical and material support; the Historic Preservation Program for their support of this exhibition and its opening reception; our excellent teaching assistant, Céleste Cebra; and William Tyre and the Glessner House Museum, our hosts for this exhibition. 

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Lastly, we offer our thanks to the students, who made this class an excellent teaching and learning experience.