in an Age of Non-Discovery

Land Mark Architecture - in an age of non-discovery

RICHARD GLOVER MFA 2007 THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES Thesis/Dissertation Sheet

Surname: GLOVER First name: RICHARD Other name: JOHN

Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar: MFA School: SCHOOL OF MEDIA ARTS Faculty: COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS

Title: Land Mark Architecture – in an age of non-discovery

The aim of this MFA Research Documentation is to present the ideas behind the photographs produced during the MFA Degree. In Chapter 2 I will briefly analyse photographers who have influenced or provided structure for my practice. In Chapter 3 I will detail my earliest work and follow with an analysis of the recent projects completed within the research time frame for this MFA Degree. These recent projects have been summarised under the following headings: Transition, which explores the different stages in the architectural construction and deconstruction process in particular sites that would generally be considered unpresentable - sites that are in either a state of decay or dereliction or a state of re-building; Frontier, which looks at new housing developments in outer Sydney suburbs and examines the influence of social imperatives and relevance at a time when aspects of environmental concern are at the forefront of social commentary; and Monolith, examines the remnant modernist vision of high-rise residential architecture, in Sydney and London. Land Mark Architecture – in an age of non-discovery is the urban landscape of landmarks and marks on the land. They should be viewed in the context of documentary photography. I have ignored the buildings that are deemed landmarks, and by following a less obvious path, have explored local, unclassified, and aesthetically uncertain areas of the built environment.

Declaration relating to disposition of project thesis/dissertation

I hereby grant to the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all property rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation.

I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstracts International (this is applicable to doctoral theses only).

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Date of completion of requirements for Award: Land Mark Architecture - in an age of non-discovery

RICHARD GLOVER MFA 2007 ORIGINALITY STATEMENT

‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project’s design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.’

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‘I hereby grant the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my thesis in Dissertation Abstract International (this is applicable to doctoral theses only). I have either used no substantial portions of copyright material in my thesis or I have obtained permission to use copyright material; where permission has not been granted I have applied/will apply for a partial restriction of the digital copy of my thesis or dissertation.’

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Date ...... Land Mark Architecture - in an age of non-discovery

Contents:

2. Prologue 4. Chapter I: Introduction 10. Chapter II: Influences 19. Chapter III: The Work: Transition, Frontier, Monolith 44. Summary 46. Endnotes 50. List of Plates 52. Appendices 55. Bibliography

RICHARD GLOVER MFA 2007

1 back ofaManilajeepneywere sightsandexperiencesthatwere tomarkmysuburban of aThaipython,eating14-coursePekingDuckinHongKong,andridingthe the ruinsofColosseum,walkingteemingstreets ofBombay, graspingtheneck Jewels, sailingontheRhine,goingbytrainthrough theSwissAlps,wanderingamong Centre, gaspingatthepower ofNiagaraFalls,surfing Waikiki, gawkingattheCrown But inthe1960s,iceskatingunderworld’s largest Christmastree at Rockefeller itinerary ofaspeed-sight-seeingtourtheworld. landmarks ofnature andcivilization were revealed tome,alistnowreading likethe throughon ajourney 13countriesinNorthAmerica,Europe andAsia,manygreat to livefortwoyearsintheworld’s greatest metropolis, NewYork City. From there, traveller:fromThe next,Iwasaninternational provincial Australia,myfamilywent One dayIwasanordinary boygrowing upinsuburbanSydneythe1960s. PROLOGUE 2

1. from the series: Monolith 2004-2007 boy’s imagination with a taste for the exotic.

As an adult I continued on my quest for “discovery” as I pictured it: in the mode of National Geographic, heading for destinations unexplored and unexposed, returning with images of previously unrecorded places, events, peoples, landscapes and structures: images that would affirm my youthful conception of landmarks. My early experience had led me to believe that at the very least I would be one step ahead of other would-be world-seekers by trekking to what were then unmarked destinations with exotic names: Ko Samui, Kalimpong, Toba and Pokhara, names full of the promise of discovery.

In fact, I made no real discoveries, in the sense of being the first to see. What I did learn from these travels was that by the last quarter of the 20th century, even the furthest and most obscure of places had already been marked: by a new generation of international traveller - adventurers, tourists, voyeurs, opportunists and entrepreneurs. The myth of backpacker integrity, eschewing comfort and guided tours off the beaten track, could not disguise the fact that these places were already marked, as destinations for self-gratification, souvenirs and snapshots.

The structure of the world itself changed as I grew older. Thirty years ago the generation of my youth stood on the threshold of the democratisation of world travel. Irrespective of background, we can now have the world delivered to us in packages bought on credit. Few places remain untouched by a sameness that accompanies the travel industry’s need to accommodate, in the hotels, the franchises, the billboards. The cultures of place have become mere backdrops; a landmark a reassurance that you are where the itinerary says.

3 CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION

“From what we find we like – what we are easily attracted to – we can learn much of what we really are.”1

The aim of this MFA Research Documentation is to present the ideas behind the work produced during the MFA Degree. In Chapter 2 I will briefly analyse photographers who have influenced or provided structure for my practice. In Chapter 3 I will detail my earliest work and follow with an analysis of the recent projects completed within the research time frame for this MFA Degree. These recent projects have been summarised under the following headings:

Transition, which explores the different stages in the architectural construction and decaying process in particular sites that would generally be considered unpresentable, being either in a state of decay, dereliction or re-building.

Frontier, which looks at new housing developments in outer Sydney suburbs and examines the influence of social imperatives and relevance at a time when aspects of environmental concern are at the forefront of social commentary; and

Monolith, which examines the remnant modernist vision of high-rise residential architecture in Sydney and London. I have titled this paper Land Mark Architecture – in an age of non-discovery, to reflect my subject, architecture and the urban environment, at the beginning of the 21st century.

Landmark has here become land mark, pointing to the dichotomous nature of my principal subject, architecture. Since my preference is to photograph more commonplace and utilitarian features of the urban environment, the branching of the word aims to defuse landmark of its elevating stature. Land Marks denote subjects which I bring to light through photography, in order to investigate positive and negative aspects of how architecture is perceived.

Landmark is generally understood as “a prominent or well known object in or feature of a particular landscape,”2 and often has significance as a symbol of place, and universal recognition… The Sydney Opera House is an exemplar, as is the Empire State building, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and The Royal Crescent, Bath.

A building such as The Magney House by architect Glenn Murcutt can also be considered a “landmark” both in the sense of this definition and by its extended meaning as “an event or change marking a stage or a turning point in history”.3

4 2004-2007 the series: Transition 2. from

While I have an interest in landmark buildings, and have photographed many around the world, my interest is confined to their cultural, historical and aesthetic parameters.

As a photographer, I find these examples too obvious a subject for any deeper investigation. There is a familiarity about landmark architecture that has come about through the reproduction of images which diminishes the significance of the thing itself. The constant recycling and repetition of images, in film and advertising, and through the technical perfection of the image that can be now be achieved by a computer program, feeds a world that is hungry for “iconic” images. This familiarisation has a destabilising effect on our imagination, our perceptions and awareness; the real thing often comes off badly against the perfected image.

My own inclination is to photograph buildings and elements of the urban environment that are unmarked by notice, to reveal the architectural dichotomy expressed as land marks: viewers of these photographs may not have registered the subjects as “architecture” or elements of architecture. These dichotomous aspects relate to the three thematic lines of inquiry as outlined above: transition, frontier and monolith.

5 The urban environment is architecture, built with a purpose indicating that most structures have undergone some form of design and decision-making process. In response to a perceived need for building, a site is acquired, planning approval sought, a developer’s plan decided, an architect’s design conceived. Subject to many forms of regulation and control, the building is constructed for use by humans who will make changes to the building over time. Sometimes construction is declared a triumph, sometimes it is vigorously criticised, with disputes often arising along expert/ consumer lines.4

Most buildings though, survive both process and judgement and become part of the ever-consolidating city. We become habituated to a continuous reworking of the cityscape on large and small scales.

It is from within this environment that I find my subjects of photographic study. I attempt to bring attention to structures, structural phases and elements, and remnants of the architectural process that do not fit the prescription of landmark. My subjects are land marks, ignored because of superficial perceptions that they are insufficient as images, perhaps ‘ugly’, ‘unfinished’ ‘ordinary’ or ‘derelict’, subjects which comprise the section Transition. Other subjects might more accurately be considered ‘marks on the land’, such as the contradictory architectural presences which I explore in the section Frontier.

With this two-fold approach to architecture as land mark and mark on the land in mind, I interrogate my environment through photography to raise questions about purpose and process: how the structure has been extrapolated from its physical and social context. Why is that there? Who designed that? What were the constraints at that time? What is that for? Why does this go unnoticed?

Wanting to understand in greater detail the forces and influences that result in the shape of the urban environment in which I live is the motivator of my work. Answers from the process of enquiry arrive through the photographs I produce and subsequent research.

As Robert Venturi suggests in the quotation at the beginning of this introduction, being drawn to a subject is a clue to the recovery of more intuitive knowledge

An age of non-discovery, from the second part of this paper’s title, is a way of characterising the present day and establishing the context of attitudes and perceptions that were canvassed in the discussion of land mark architecture.

“The Age of Discovery” was literally that. During the period from the early 15th century, the strong empire-building nations of Europe conducted maritime exploration around

6 the globe for economic, political and strategic reasons. This period was marked by accompanying advances in technology and ideas which challenged the prevailing structures of religion and ideology, which were to evolve during the Renaissance.5

The Age of Discovery waned in the early 17th century with the European powers having established trans-oceanic trade; there followed further physical exploration of continental interiors and the poles. The explosion of inventions throughout the Industrial Revolution extended this reach into the unknown.

Now that geography has been exhausted, and the exploration of “outer space” notwithstanding, journeys of physical discovery mainly seem to be the domain of television, retreads of the steps of the originals in an endless quest for novel presentation: driving vintage cars from Peking to Paris, Scottish actors on motorcycle journeys, English chefs looking for new things to eat.

In the broadest sense, the process of globalisation began with those voyages of discovery six hundred years ago: what began as the charting of distance has become the conquest of it. For my purposes here, globalisation can best be defined as

“the perceived development of a single worldwide economy and culture, seen as due largely to the influence of large multina- tional companies, and to the rise of technlogies related to international travel, mass communications and media”.6

It is a marker of a stage in human evolution, which Hans Ibelings7 calls “supermodernism” and which takes up my previous point about the pervasive feeling of familiarity:

“Although cause and effect have become inextricably entangled in discussions about globalization, so that it is difficult to say precisely what its effects are, international interrelatedness and the emergence of worldwide networks in an ephemeral cyberspace have undoubt- edly changed our perception of the world. As a consequence, the world, especially for the inhabitants of the affluent northern hemisphere (and Australasia), has become both smaller and larger. Smaller, because everything is, if not in reality then certainly electronically, closer; larger, because thanks to telecommunications, the rising tide of information and ever-increasing mobility, a larger portion of the world is one way or another familiar, seems familiar or is assumed to be familiar.”8

Ibelings notes that in the entanglement of theories about the causes and effects of globalisation 9 , there is agreement about the resultant homogeneity of the world’s built

7 3. from the series: Kellyville 2004 3. from environments:

“The worldwide presence of chain stores and fast food restaurants, of advertisements for universally available consumer goods, from Sony to Marlboro to Nike, are the most obvious manifestations of homogeniza- tion. But there are plenty of other indications. One is the fact that cities and agglomerations around the world have undergone compara- ble developments and assumed similar shapes. Wherever one looks there seem to be high-rise downtowns, low-rise suburbs, urban pe- ripheries with motorway cultures and business parks and so on.”10

In an age of non-discovery this homongenisation - that may be the end result of the modernist thrust for starting over, for standardisation - reflects the history of the image itself: copying, mimicking, borrowing, amalgamating. The cumulative effect of this is that: “…everywhere the accompanying architecture has assumed a certain expressionlessness.”11

8 In his book: Non-places. Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, Marc Auge says that the essence of supermodernity is “excess”:

an excess of time, in which an overabundance of events, of information and the expanding tangle of interdependences in what has been called the “world system” threatens to rob the present of all meaning.12 What is present is not that the world lacks meaning but that society has an intense need to give meaning to the world.13

an excess of space, that is the availability of travel12, discussed previously. And further to this idea is the proliferation of what Augé terms ‘non-places’, installations where people are collected and moved en masse: commercial centres; transit camps: the growing numbers of the stateless themselves and the concomitant tightening of borders.15

an excess of ego, demonstrated in the desire of the Western individual to define his own world, where he chooses his information and interprets it himself and for himself. Society is geared to reinforce this premise: advertising which targets individual self-interest but presented as a social benefit: political ideology based around individual freedoms16 (as illusory as they might be).

Ibelings’ comments that the effects of globalisation have created the stage for the new architectural term “supermodernism” (a term he acknowledges has been borrowed from Marc Augé.17). Together with Auge’s definition of this term as “excess” of time, space and ego – that is, the way people deal with place and space, forms the basis for this paper’s definition of an age of non-discovery: that is the curiosity of humanity has physically reached all points of the globe, seemingly come to a halt, and now has no option other than to explore itself.

An age of non-discovery is then the reality underlying these effects, marking an end to the history of geographic discovery that is now consigned to the formats of re- enactment. The only geographic space left to explore is the immediate one, hence Augé’s anthropological exploration of the non-places that have developed as a result of globalisation. It follows then, that a closer, photographic examination of where we live is the only fertile ground for the discovery of meaning in a world standardised by commodification and systematised by market forces.

Much like the photographer Robert Polidori, I discovered:

“.... that cameras were instrumental in a sort of oracular process. It was a simple concept: where you point the camera is the question,

9 4,5,6. © Bernd & Hilla Becher - left to right: Framework House 1989, Water Towers 1988, Gas Tank 1992.

and the picture you get is the answer.... I knew I wanted the physical world to reveal itself to me and tell me what the answers are.”18

Following this method, of using the camera as exploratory tool, I have entered my immediate ‘supermodern’ geographic space. This research document and related photographs titled Land Mark Architecture: in an age of non-discovery is the result of my explorations in photography among neglected or ignored architectural sites and remnant structures – in order to discover the meaning behind the manifest – explored in the following chapters.

CHAPTER II – INFLUENCES

This chapter presents the work of photographers whose work I admire; who have provided both a scaffold for the approach taken in my work and reinforcement of my resolve in pursuing a direction that is grounded on a well represented and respected path.

That path can be summarised through an examination of the Tate Modern 2003 photographic exhibition, Cruel and Tender. The Real in the Twentieth Century Photograph. In her essay, Photography Itself from the book of the exhibition, Emma Dexter states the work explores the realist tradition within twentieth-century photography in three ways, through: an engagement with the subject matter but at the same time from a ‘distanced’ perspective; through the relationship between industry, architecture and photography, and; through the portrait. 19

Cruel and Tender presented the work of many photographers I admire, including: Robert Adams, William Eggleston, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Paul Graham, Andreas Gursky, Nicholas Nixon, Thomas Ruff and Stephen Shore amongst others.

10 Dexter states the real in Cruel and Tender opposed itself to idealising tendencies such as romanticism and sentimentality or humour and pathos. Instead, the work concentrates on a harsh frontal stare and pure description that deals with both the appearance and socio-political implications of the subject matter.20

“This kind of photography achieves by cumulative effects something approaching narrative, but a narrative told quietly, without dramatic incident.” 21

I wish to concentrate my attention, however, on a summary of those photographers from this exhibition whose work I most closely align myself together with a selection of other influential practitioners.

The German photographer team, Bernd and Hilla Becher began their career in the late 1950’s, and immediately adopted an approach to their photography that remained unchanged for their entire career (Bernd Becher died in 2007). Their subject matter was industrial archaeology, unearthing remnants of post-industrial society that mark the landscape.

Using a large format view camera with black and white film they framed their subject matter: disused gas tanks, water towers, blast furnaces, industrial facades and coal chutes from a consistent viewpoint and scale, under uniform overcast daylight. The subject would be tightly cropped within the frame but the surrounding elements were always a considered part of the composition whether it be cracks in the pavement, a path line, industrial debris or a tree, chimney or adjacent building. These photographs had a timelessness:

“Since these structures were disappearing more and more, we could imagine that conserving these things photographically would someday be of general interest.”22

7 left: © Thomas Struth, Hamburg 1986, 8 right: © Walker Evans, Atlanta 1936

11 They arranged each image within grid-like groups according to type: each image may be viewed individually or considered as the whole of the collection or typology, as the Bechers referred to it.

The method of developing collections of related images (and thus producing series) is central to my work. The photographs presented as part of the MFA have been grouped into series – the images within some of these series are distinctly related by composition and subject (see Frontier – Kellyville and Monolith below) and bare a correlation to the Becher’s methodology.

The work of the Bechers has been a reinforcing influence on my photographic sensibility and provided anchoring principles:

“There is a wisdom and honour in the Bechers’ work which frees them from imposing a conditional reading upon the viewer. The wisdom is the methodology they recognise in the ‘neutral’ de- piction of record photography. The honour stems from a prin- ciple about not imposing their ideas on other people.”23

If, from time to-time I have deliberately altered my approach to a given subject, so as to appear less Becheresque, my interests in the built environment, particularly in the marks made by industry, remain close to theirs. Another shared purpose is to document those elements of our respective environments that have had little acknowledgement from either architectural critics or consumers.

“The Bechers’ purpose has always been to make the clearest possible photographs of industrial structures. They are not interested in making euphe- mistic, socio-romantic pictures glorifying industry, nor doom-laden specta- cles showing its costs and dangers. Equally, they have nothing in common with photographers who seek to make pleasing modernist abstractions, treating the structures as decorative shapes divorced from their function.

“The Bechers’ goal is to create photographs that are concentrated on the

Examples of photographic influences not formally discussed in this chapter, but presented for additional reference. Left to right: 9. © Richard Misrach, Unamed Playa 1994, 10. © Robert Adams, Colorado Sprints 1968, 11. © Stephen Shore, Amarillo 1974

12 Examples of photographic influences. Clockwise top left 12. © Nicholas Nixon, The Brown Sisters, 1975, 13. © Lewis Baltz, New Industrial Parks, Near Irvine, 1974 Element 51, 14. © Jan Staller, West Side Manhattan, 1988, 15. © Joseph Koudelka, Cardiff Bay, 1998

structures themselves and not qualified by subjective interpretations. To them, these structures are the ‘architecture of engineers’ and their pictures should be seen as the photography of engineers - that is, record pictures.”24

Bernd Becher stated that the present day era of industrialisation has a Calvinist approach to the built environment, that is, it is concerned with making money, and doing things quickly and efficiently, and architectural forms derive from that idea. There is no aesthetic consideration, no need to make it beautiful. This approach, nonetheless, creates a variety, a very independent aesthetic.25

A student of Bernd Becher at the Düsseldorf Academy, Thomas Struth was known known early in his career for his cool and distanced monochromatic streetscapes shot in German cities.

His work has a pedigree derived from Marvin, to Atget, to Sander and the Bechers and shares two criteria that link them all: the systematic drive with which they collect their images, and a devotion to a neutral ‘objective’ position.26 Benjamin Buchloh summarises Struth as following a strict set of discursive boundaries, whereby

“1. he refrains from photographing the monument or the

13 architectural marvel, both historic and contemporary, (i.e., touristic clichés, and the architecture as fashion item), and

2. his work focuses on vernacular architecture in urban industrial culture. Avoiding rural, ‘historic’, religious, etc., sites.”27

Struth’s early black and white series of streetscapes present seemingly nondescript streets in European and American cities. A single point perspective leads the eye along the road, past buildings, cars and urban detritus to a point in the distance as undistinguished as the information along the way. A first-time viewer would doubtless ask themselves what is the point of these photographs?

Buchloh suggests that architectural photography such as Struth’s,

“originated from two oppositional impulses: to recover an ‘image’ as a record of an imminent loss, and to discover a new territory.”28

The two impulses are complementary as well as oppositional and re-affirms an approach to photography I share with Struth based on a documentary-like aesthetic and clear visualisation through a series of repeated studies reinforces the message. 29

The great American photographer Walker Evans documented the Depression era of the 1930’s. His photographs reflect, almost by default, this time that was marked by an economic phenomenon that had visible social and cultural effects. As Judith Keller remarks:

“All of his latent instincts were combined: a straight cataloguing method imbued with an inscrutable melancholy, a long look at neglected objects, and an unerring eye for the signs of popular culture.

“He knew very well that nearly everything he photographed would be gone in a few years or decades and be replaced by equivalents that display all the self-consciousness their predecessors lacked”.30

Pertinent to my photography practice is Evans’ avoidance of romantic or sentimental imagery and his deliberate opposition to attitudinal mores of his day31 – a direct co-relation to my “land mark” subject matter, that is marks on the land that are not “landmarks” in the conventional sense.

A distinction made of Evans’ work is that he was not interested in the photograph- as-document per se, but rather in the subjective interpretation expressed through the

14 Left to right. 16. © Hiroshi Sugimoto, Stadium Drive-in Orange, 1993, 17. © Paul Graham, Troubled Land, 1984-86.

‘documentary’ image and its significance for the future.32 I wish for the photographic series I have produced as part of this MFA Degree to be considered with this point in mind. The recent series Frontier and Monolith (see below) as well as an earlier series, Manhole Covers (see below), should be considered firstly as ‘documents’, but also for their significance in the future as examples of twentieth century architecture and industrial design and contemporary attitudes towards it.

I will elaborate on the messages inherent in my work on later pages of this paper, but like Evans I aim to capture valid signs of my time and environment and construct a balance between form and content in order that viewers can make a clear judgement of the work and enjoy its aesthetic appeal.33

“As is also true of the others represented in this exhibition, Evans was at his best when he turned his attention to things with which he was familiar, putting a slightly new angle on them, and building up an im- mensely rich body of work on a single underlying theme.”34

Within much of the work presented in Cruel & Tender: The Real in the 20th Century Photograph I can clearly identify the elements that my own work comprises - of subject material (architecture and the built environment), methodology (using a large- format camera and collecting images as series-studies), lines of influence (that of a neutral objectivity to photography) and instinctive tendencies (to pursue subject matter that interests and that is not mainstream/contemporary/fashionable).

Lewis Baltz was another photographer included in Cruel and Tender. A contemporary of conceptual artists in the 1960’s, he used single images to kick-start photographic

15 series35 dealing with, for example, industrial parks and tract housing in the burgeoning urban centres of his native California. His series, The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California 1974-5 were presented as ‘topographic’ pictures which alluded to larger social and architectural patterns in a similar way to the Minimal and Conceptual art movements of that time.36

Dexter states that Baltz’s series

“describe in minute detail the horrific, anonymous banality of today’s industrial building …

“These structures tell us nothing, and (in that) Baltz’s images collude in the denial of information … there is always something which lies beyond – that which is unrepresentable.”37

Baltz considered his architectural subject matter ‘sub-architecture’ as it was not considered the usual subject for architectural photographers. His photographs have been described as “skeleton portraits of middle-class architecture”38 – a comment I can relate my photographs of new housing in outer Sydney and inner-city high-rise blocks to (see New Suburbs and Monolith below).

Baltz’s New Industrial Parks monochromatic series has a gritty, graphic aesthetic which suits its subject matter – that of alienated architecture. Consideration of photographic medium – in particular the use of colour or monochrome – and its relationship to the subject is important. My choice of which is always a matter of complimenting and ultimately strengthening the subject and its message.

The choice of medium and its relationship to subject is expertly illustrated through the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto. His exquisitely rendered monochrome photographs exclude the emotional influence that colour can have on a viewer and concentrate attention to his principal subject matter – time.

What is significant is his ability to capture a sense of duration in a single still image. This is achieved in his images of theatres screening films (photographic exposure time coinciding with the length of the film), the obviousness of his method notwithstanding. Time is also an important factor and influences the viewing of his seascape series, where the length of exposure of the images is short.

What distinguishes Sugimoto’s work is his seemingly simultaneous capture of two time frames: the still interior of a theatre and the motion picture itself; an apparently moving sea with an exposure of a fraction of a second. This notion, expressed in images of time frozen in its movement and of motion as time passing, is the opposite

16 of the concept of “fashion” and apposite to timelessness. As John Szarkowski points out: “all photographs are time exposures, of shorter or longer duration, and each describes a discrete parcel of time.”25

Paul Graham is a British photographer who prefers not to be categorised as a documentary photographer. His subjects are drawn from natural, built and social landscapes. He states

“… art isn’t about providing answers. It’s more about questions – ask- ing thought provoking, unexpected, unarticulated questions,”40

Graham notes the importance of producing series of 30, 40 or more photographs as a counter to the prevailing pressure to be as superficially definitive as a snapshot. In an age of excess, particularly of “knowledge”, we want solutions that leave nothing to chance or doubt, that sum up the world in a snapshot.

Paul Graham, along with many of the photographers mentioned in this chapter, began their photographic investigations in their local urban environments. The New York based photographer, Jan Staller is another example.

It is “uncertain knowledge”41 that is the residual effect of Jan Staller’s studies of the lower west side of New York City, according to Paul Goldberger, a noted commentator on photography and architecture. He sees Staller’s work as a view of nature in a great urban city. In images that finely balance the eerie light of mid-winter dusk with scenes from the city’s edge, the assumption that we “know” this great city is undermined.

Staller stalked the fringes of a great urban centre where few would travel through. His photographs present urban decay and dereliction diametrically opposed to the established image of New York as the glitzy, glamorous corporate capital of the world. Using colour film and long, twilight exposures, Staller further emphasises this surreality.

Josef Koudelka’s series Reconnaissance was a two year study of mines, industry, ports and land reclamation sites in Wales. While Wales may now be promoted as a beauteous land (of tourist opportunity) it is marked by centuries of industrial exploitation that have remained largely unacknowledged by society.

However, industrial remnants as the ruins of economic and social “progress” have been freshly appraised for their historic value. The role of the photographer has been important in this regard, as the Bechers’ typology of ‘industrial archaeology’ shows. Koudelka’s images of dereliction represent an alphabet of an altered state of affairs:

17 photographs that is achievedintheworkofphotographersIhavediscussedhere. Theyhavemade image, toleavearesidual doubtwhere knowledgewasasource ofcertainty, thenthis If themarkofanartististoawakenordisarmviewerwithadeceptivesimplicity Bechers’ unchangingmethodologyandsource ofsubjectmatter. Approach iscomplementary tosubjectandreinforces themessage,exemplified inthe present seeminglyimpersonal,objectivedocumentationoftheirchosensubject. environments andtheirseeingwithinclearpersonalparameters.Parameterswhich If there isacommonality, itisinthephotographer’s impulsetoexplore their production methodology, conceptualanalyses,aestheticsense,andsensibility. I findmanyfacetsofinfluenceandattraction.Theseincludeaspectssubjectmatter, Richard Misrach,LoisConnor, GabrieleBasilico,Andreas GurskyandGrantMudford, here: inexamplesoftheworkJoelMeyerowitz, Stephen Shore, RobertAdams, There are manyotherphotographerswhoseworkI admire, buthavenotdiscussed Summary mark, monumentalasamarkeroftime. the exposure ofoncegreat industryinitsabandoned andbroken present isatrueland were tothatthing,andwhere youstoodinrelation toit,thenandnow.” less. Andit’s thequalityofthatbiteteachesyouhowconnected for athousandthofsecond,hard fortenminutes.Buthard, nonethe- you’ve beenresponsive to something,andyoulookedhard atit.Hard yesterday. Theyshowyouwhatlookat.Iftakeaphotograph, “teachyouaboutyourownunravelingpast,ortheimmediacyof 42 18

18, 19, 20. from the series: Manhole Covers 1991-94 21, 22, 23. from the series: Urban Panorama 1988-90 city architecture wascounterpoisedbythehorizontality ofthesubjectsIfoundin warehouses, wharves,lanewayfacades,etc.Theexaggeratedhigh-riseofSydney for theAustralianoutback,wasequallyadeptwithcitysubjectsIphotographed: The expansiveviewofthe3:1ratioformatpanoramiccamera,anaturalchoice Sydney. pictorial Australianlandscapes.Iexplored myimmediateenvironment, inner-city Panorama (1988-90)andwasconceivedinreaction The veryfirstseriesof related photographsIproduced hadagenerictitle,Urban according tothethree headings:Transition, Frontier, Monolith. analysis ofthephotographsproduced aspartoftheMFA documentation-grouped This chapteroutlinesimportantearlyphotographicseriesIcompletedfollowedbyan CHAPTER III–THEWORK 43 tothemid-eightiestrend for in thewaythatbuildingsmightbe.IcouldidentifywithBechers’statedaimof Research revealed that London’s manhole covers were not protected as heritage items broad cross-section ofthedifferent typesofcoverstoberepresented. This methodsuggestedaconsistencyofcompositionandlighting,alsoallowed the subject,andachieveda“quiet”presentation ofdesignandsituationaldifferences. photographic approach. This heldamirror totheutilitarianandfunctionalnature of Manhole Covers(1992-94)presented me with asubjectrequiring anordered vernacular. in greater detail:architectural examplesandinstancesofthe transitions,Modernist This seriesinitiatedtheexaminationofsubjectmatter Iwastoexplore inlateryears surrounding industrialsuburbs. And liketheBechers’industrialarcheology subjects,themanholecovers have appear iscentraltoourcause.” “… theneedtodocumentwhatwillobviouslydis- 44

24. from the series: Billboards 2001 21 Emma Dextersays: images thatwillcreate aseries,orsubjectcollection.Ihavefoundtobetrue what established. Thateachwasaseriesisimportant,sinceIhavealwayssearched for It wasintheproduction of theseearlyseriesthatmyworkingmethodologywas London pavements. brighter Australianlightandmonochrome toaccentuatethecolourlessnature ofinner in lightinfluencedmychoiceofmediumforeachseries:colourfilmtoworkwiththe a vividnessthatrenders the softBritishlightalmostmelancholic.Thesedifferences contrast,creatingof theAustraliansunlightnaturallyaccentuatescolourandinternal by time. It is London light worn that confers the most dramatic contrast; the brightness demonstrate evidenceoferosion intheirarchitecture, Sydneyweathered bythesun, between thetwocitiesisrevealed insubsequentcollections.Aslocations,bothcities benchmarks formysubsequentwork.Thediscoveryofsimilarityandcontrast These twoseries,Sydney’s UrbanPanoramaandLondon’s ManholeCoversbecame grasped –buttheyare nonetheless absolutelyfunctional.” “ anelementoftheirrational–somethingthatcannotbe

25. Image No: SP01-085 1999 45

result from goingoutintothefieldandlookingforpictures. to becomeacoherent body ofwork,isthrough actuallyproducing photographs that I haveconcludedthattheonlywaytoconfirmpotentialforanimage(orimages) investigation, developintoalegitimateseriesorsub-series (e.g.,NewSuburbsbelow). Transition below)butincludeimagesofnewsubjectmatterthatmay, through further Thus, adayinthefieldcouldproduce furtherexamplesforanexistingseries(e.g., conceptual discovery. Thisisinthetraditionof successful imagesforapotentialseriesthatwouldcontainthepossibilityof My photographicexplorationsfortheseearlyseriesestablishedatrailfrom initial ing eachnewpicture tosee whatitaddstothosethatpreceded it.” While theirmethodsare systematic, athearttheyare empiricists,making hypothesesandlookingformodelsofreality, notabsolutetruths. “(those) photographers(who)pursuetheirmediumlikescientists,test- more complexpicture ofaparticularsocietyorlocation.” ates astretched-out linearcollageofimagesthatpresents a “single imagestellalimitedstory, theextendedessaycre- 46 47

26. from the series: Tate Transformation 1994-2000 27, 28, 29. from the series: Berlin 1995 23 Of thistime,JamesHoward KunstlersaysinTheCityMind: transformation. as buildingswere built,demolished, rejuvenated, orignored, duringthefrenzy of Thesephotographsportraythestateofflux neo-classical tocommunistmodern. saw Berlinasawonderfuljuxtapositionofbuildingstylesandvalues,rangingfrom architectural developments inthemid1990sfollowingunification.AtthistimeI Berlin (1995)isaboutthecityintransition,thisserieswasmadeduringmajor during thetimeframeofMFA documentation(seeTransition below). the builtenvironment. They actedasaprecursor tothesubsequentworkcompleted Following theseearlyprojects were furtherseriesexploringtransitionalphasesof pudiation oftheaggregate twentieth-centuryarchitectural fashions, critical reconstruction by city planningofficials.Inessence,itwasa re- “The urbanrehab policyin placesincereunification hadbeendubbed theories, fantasies, and dogmas that had insidiously degraded the public realm since the days of Gropius and Le Corbusier – the modernists’ disdain for the street. There was, by the 1990’s, a very specific sense of fatigue with the Brave New World weltanshauung of the modern. It had failed every conceivable belief system, including especially the domi- nant postwar politics of statist socialism and democratic liberalism. It had failed as art theory and as pseudo social science. In Berlin, both the East and West had had their love affairs with architectural Modern- ism and it had turned out pretty badly on each side of the wall.”48

Tate Transformation (1994-2000). In 1994 I began to document the transformation of the former Bankside Power Station, on the River Thames, into Tate Modern, the world’s largest gallery of modern art. The final two years of my work were formally commissioned by the Tate, and exhibited at the Royal Institute of British Architects to coincide with the opening of the gallery in May 2000.

Both subject and the final collection of photographs are about transformation and serve as the narrative of the construction process. Individual photographs are illustrations of transitional phases of that process.

Billboards (1992-2007). A transitional phase can be indicated in numerous ways - anything that is subject to time will reflect idiosyncratic change. During the economic recession of the early 1990s in Britain I discovered a telling indicator of transition in the 24-sheet billboard. London, in particular is covered with these billboards; in buoyant economic times they are a frame for ebullient advertisers. At the time of photographing, their torn remains evoke abstract expressionism by default.

These projects established the methodological framework for my photography: a physical exploration of the local urban environment that revealed subjects of vernacular architecture in states of degeneration or regeneration.

The work discussed below and presented as part of the MFA Research Degree was produced under this same methodological framework.

TRANSITION (2004-2007)

“Eighty percent of everything ever built in America has been built since the end of World War II. This tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities, and rav- aged countryside is not simply an expression of our economic pre- dicament, but in large part a cause. It is the everyday environment

24 where most Americans live and work, and it represents a gather- ing calamity whose effects we have hardly begun to measure.”49

James Howard Kunstler’s sobering criticism of contemporary American urban society, with his emphasis on that “eighty percent”, brings awareness to the enormity of change in the urban environment in a dramatically short time. Building and town planning have not been given the time to become integral components of culture, rather they are products to be bought and sold, redeveloped and repackaged, when “the goal is nothing, development everything.”50

The work presented in Transition is a collection of completed and on-going series, held by the unifying term of transition, as the passing from one state to another. In most of these examples the subject or sites have no alternative presentation – they are either in a state of decay or in a state of re-building.

“Through the agency of the frame the world is organ- ised into a coherence which it actually lacks, into a pa- rade of tableaux, a succession of ‘decisive moments’.”51

Economically and socially, sites within a city that have no perceivable function are called wastelands. Often they are economically deprived areas awaiting redevelopment. From a wider perspective, the notion of transition in a city demands that

“every corner of the city must have its purpose, must be assigned a function and opened up”.52

A site is ignored if it has no socially or economically acceptable function, as the French Datar Study53 showed: urbanites visually filter their surroundings, noting what is “attractive” and ignoring

“highways, high-tension piles, tower flats, industrial areas, neon advertising, ‘decorative’ pavements, parking lots, garbage contain- ers, glass recycling bins, bus stop shelters, and so forth”.54

On this basis these visual and functional wastelands are dismissed as having any intrinsic relevance in the cityscape. Instead they are often covered, concealed or disguised by a shroud of scaffolding, wire mesh or screens, awaiting an immediate make-over or, more likely, to remain in transitional limbo.

The series of monochromatic panoramic images made in the narrow laneways in the working class inner-city Sydney suburb of Beaconsfield, reveal a local dialect

25 26

32. from the series: Transition 2004-2007 31. from the series: Transition 2004-2007 27

34. from the series: Transition 2004-2007 33. from the series: Transition 2004-2007 28

36. from the series: Transition 2004-2007 35. from the series: Transition 2004-2007 37, 38, 39, 40, 41. Beaconsfield Lanes from the series: Transition 2004-2007 29 of rear fences, entries, borders, structures and materials and street surrounds. The possession of rear lane access is a noteworthy “feature” in the language of real estate, but certainly not picturesque. Laneways are ignored except for practical purposes of access and delivery. They are not ‘presentable’, and in working class areas, have the whiff of danger - one does not walk down laneways on one’s own.

As a photographic subject, I found the lanes more difficult to work with than manhole covers and high-rise apartments (see Monolith below), since both these subjects fit more easily into a series criteria. The laneways had a more subtle juxtaposition of elements to deal with. The myopic amalgamation of materials and methods used to define these boundaries indicates the practicalities of security over need for any visual prestige. These rear views are not the presentation façades of the residential properties of Kellyville and the New Suburbs of Frontier (see below), which appear to ignore questions of function or relevance.

Part of my photographic sensibility has been to develop a formal idiom that represents the “chaos and complexity” of the urban environment.55 For some people the camera is an instrument used to reflect themselves: their children, gardens, holiday scenes. In photographing scenes of the everyday and ordinary, of which the decayed and dismissed are part, I am demonstrating my natural attraction to the complexity that is commonplace. I do this as a way of reminding myself - and my viewers - that these images represent the basis of our existence and have a significance equal to things in pristine and beautiful clothing. As Robert Venturi stated in his book Complexity & Contradiction in Architecture:

“As an artist I frankly write about what I like in architecture: complexity and contradiction. From what we find we like – what we are easily attracted to – we can learn much of what we really are.”56

Like the Bechers, Struth, Baltz and others mentioned in Chapter II, I make photographs of utilitarian elements that do not in themselves attract attention. They are ‘straight’ photographs: clear, frontal, and centred. The image of an object blurs the distinction between representation and reality.57 I do not want to make an exact prescription for the viewer’s comprehension of my photographs, but rather leave subjective intent held subtly within a formal photographic framework.

FRONTIER (2004-2007)

“We look to our buildings to hold us, like a kind of psycho- logical mould, to a helpful vision of ourselves.”58

30 Much has been written lately in the local press about housing being built on new estates on what was Sydney’s rural hinterland. In suburbs such as Kellyville these so-called “McMansions”59 are criticised not only for their size, the building-to-land ratio, and the minimal space between them, but also for their visual impact on the landscape and design that not only ignores increasing concern about prudent use of resources but seems conducive to waste and increased consumption of materials and energy.

Criticism of urban fringe developments in Australia is not new. The architect and critic, Robin Boyd said in 1963 that

“speculative builders and private owners compete with one another to reduce the bush to a desert of terra-cotta roofs.”60

Forty years later, this comment has captured the effect of the suburban sprawl that is part of Sydney’s development, traceable back through the decades: the Hills District of north-west Sydney in the 1970’s, Haberfield in the early 1900’s, and the 19th century rows of inner-city terraces are even earlier precursors. Photographs of these times present an equally desolate scene to that of Kellyville.

Popular opinion is attracted to, not necessarily the aesthetics of our houses and suburbs but the impression of a particular way of life.61 Each of these suburban examples offer distinctive and attractive “lifestyles”. Will Kellyville, in time, become a place of such desire?

Perhaps, but at a price. Architecture critics62 point out that the Kellyville houses are larger than those of the Hills District – instead of 3-4 bedrooms they have four-five, three - four bathrooms, and whole new categories of room: reception, media, a ‘frying room’ as adjunct to kitchens, and vast ‘entertainment’ spaces. Bigger buildings on smaller plots (there is a minimum space limit between house & boundary of one metre) leave less room for large tree growth and the provision of shade. Compared to the consistent design of heritage-controlled Federation Haberfield, Kellyville is a pastiche of borrowed architectural-style motifs: Tuscan, Spanish, Federation, Tudor, Minimalist – literally tacked onto a generic blueprint shell.

While the intention of this stylisation is a wish fulfillment of a nostalgic idea of grandeur and a mark of status, these houses bear little comparison with the 19th century terrace house and its historical pedigree of consistent design and quality of building. The poverty of materials cannot impart the feeling of substance that the terrace house does.

Alain de Botton has pointed out that traditionally, houses were constructed using

31 32

43. Kellyville, from the series Frontier 2004-2007 42. Kellyville, from the series Frontier 2004-2007 45. Kellyville, from the series Frontier 2004-2007 44. Kellyville, from the series Frontier 2004-2007 33 34

46, 47, 48, 49. New Suburbs from the series Frontier 2004-2007 50, 51, 52, 53. New Suburbs from the series Frontier 2004-2007 35 local materials and following a continuous vernacular style (more for practical reasons than aesthetic).63 The ethos and processes of construction of the Kellyville houses are at odds with an increasing awareness of the environmental impact in everything we make and do, where and how we live. These big, ‘affordable’ structures ignore any conservation imperative by retreating to a past that seems simpler, indeed, more beautiful than the present. However,

“endeavouring to purchase something we think beautiful may in fact be the most unimaginative way of dealing with the longing it excites in us.”64

My reason for documenting these houses was to introduce an element of uncertainty and allow pause for consideration. These are photographs of newly-completed houses that are the product of the post-modern, consumption-dependent economic culture of our time. Lacking the appealing touches of habitation - the happy young family gardening and playing together on the front lawn, say – the viewer cannot put himself in the picture.

Instead they can contemplate what has been built, and perhaps how little things change. It seems redundant to again roll out the arguments about the capitalist imperative to invent the fraudulent “new” in its relentless quest for markets. However 1970s it sounds, it may be applied here, because this architecture is a product that will surely fail the test of sustainability and endurance, like so many other mass produced goods. These houses have the air of interchangeability and easy replaceability: short- term acquisitions for quick capital gain in a buoyant market.

Turning one’s attention to the panoramic views of neighbouring New Suburbs with names like Glenwood, and Bella Vista, one is presented with scenes that reveal the eventuality of the newly finished houses of Kellyville. With their uniformly green, well- grassed verges, un-littered gutters, shrubs and saplings, these are scenes reminiscent of a David Lynch film set.

They do indeed appear as film sets, recalling the notion of familiarity of image and script, in this case that of the contemporary Australian suburban landscape. Not even the occasional eucalypt can distinguish these scenes from Hollywood backblock or a secured suburb in Johannesburg. Whereas once a visitor could recognise a scene by its vernacular, architecture now it presents a riddle! Consumer culture has transformed citizens of place into consumers of place: housing styles presented like biscuit packets on a supermarket shelf. The look of the packet cannot disguise the sameness of taste. What is staggering in the images of suburbs such as Bella Vista is the loss of local flavour and the global extrapolation of that loss, where

“… everywhere, the accompanying architecture has as-

36 sumed a certain expressionlessness,”65 and, ironically, defeats the purpose and the dream of the aspiring consumers of place. In the age of non-discovery, these images suggest a desire for some vague communication with the past rather than any attempt to embrace the new.

Jonathan Glancey, architecture critic for Britain’s Guardian newspaper names his number one example of poor British architecture as Swindon, Wiltshire:

“the first horror, possibly the saddest victim of the executive housing that grasps its tentacles around each and every town, smothering them with kitsch design, improbable mortgages, company cars and cul-de-sacs.”66

Even the term “executive housing” seems to imply disregard, even contempt of contemporary society for its environment, as categorical as an ‘executive decision’.

The Frontier photographs were intended to document an aspect of the built environment in the spirit of wisdom and honour that the work of the Bechers and Struth reveals. In bringing attention to the state of a contemporary trend in Australian residential architecture, the photographs interrogate the subject.

The architect and critic Glenn Murcutt seeks to locate the responsibility for the hideousness of consumerism in domestic design in all who take part in consumerism. 67 The net of responsibility has a wide cast of developers, local councils and government planners and other compliant parties. In his long battles with these groups, Murcutt formed the Australian Architecture Association to rally like-minded architects to help educate people about the importance of thoughtful design. These images give serious consideration to a phenomenon that might have been avoided (perhaps in a more thoughtful world), but without the subtle humour Judy Fiskin intends in her Dingbat series:

“A metaphor that I’ve always used for (the arbitrariness of the world) is aesthetic choice. One of the reasons that I have always dealt so much with kitsch material is that arbitrariness of choice in popular architecture and popular art is quite obvious because the choices are, from our point of view, so often wrong.”68

I am not motivated by an interest in kitsch; however ridiculous these buildings seem, they reveal a particularity of time, thinking and available choice. Whether the results could have been avoided is a moot point, as Dr. Cameron Tonkinwise, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney, explains it:

37 “McMansions have less to do with the cliché of conspicuous consumption than the exercise of constrained choice. And what is con- straining those choices is the inability of professions like architecture to envision the activity of living rather than material spaces.”69

The McMansion phenomenon is an example of the “Edge City” the term coined by writer Joel Garreau to explain the growth of the suburbs as people escaped the cities. What followed were the shopping malls and only and finally, the places of work.70 Suburb-cities punctuate the breadth of the United States. Marked by a cluster of high-rise office buildings, a shopping mall and nearby highway connections, we can witness Sydney fast developing its own equivalents - Kellyville, Glenwood, Bella Vista, the satellites of the Norwest Business Park.

The “edge city” may have already spelt the end of the traditional suburb, the inevitable conclusion to the release of women from the home and an increasing social heterogeneity. These and other factors have resulted in a new suburbia where technology, shopping and security are at the forefront.71

Catering to this model involves a breathtaking wastefulness of resources and an obliteration of such aspects of culture as traditions, skills, local customs and community intra-dependence.72 According to James Howard Kunstler, the American attempt to create a drive-in utopia can only end badly, with

“…a land made up of places not worth caring about (that) will sooner or later become a nation not worth defending (or a way of life not worth carrying on).”73

(Refer also Appendix 1)

MONOLITH (2004-2007)

“The sheer physical presence of this ship-like monolith is overwhelming. Its power and weight are crushing. Its sculptural boldness and aggressive out- line are so emphatic that, although it is now actually smaller than some surrounding buildings, it still radiates a presence throughout the landscape.”74

This description is of the Unité d’Habitation, Marseille, 1947-52 designed by architect, Le Corbusier. The Unité is often cited as the archetype of the modern residential high- rise block, and lauded and derided in equal measure.75

38 The modernist movement that in architecture became known as the International Style76, was a product of early 20th century social democracy: it came to America with refugees from a devastated Europe: the revelation of civilized humanity’s capacity for evil pointed to the necessity for a recapitulation of rationalism if the world were to avoid a return to this state.77

“By 1950, the Modern Movement, via the International Style, had come overwhelmingly to mean a particular range of formal/economic solutions, which in certain contexts carried a socialist, or at least moral, significance… Indeed, many of those who used Modernist forms and ideas during the International Style phase were passionate socialists.”78

Modernism holds true to basic architectural tenets that have been established since ancient times and refined along the way.79

While Modernism declined as the driving force of architectural design during the late 20th century, its stark legacy has been left across the urban landscape. Modernist land marks dot our horizons singly, or in clusters, variations on a thrusting, cuboid theme, declaring that their architects

“rejected mimicry, indeed they consciously sought to make their work stand out from its surroundings… Modern architects have always regarded it as more important that their work should be in keeping with the age than in harmony with the surroundings.”80

Interestingly, in Britain the Modernist vision for multi-storied buildings is exemplified in public housing, whilst in Australia it is private developments: British council estates as opposed to the quintessential Australian block of flats.

These days the British council estates are ceremoniously derided as failures, a failure that may relate more to the restructuring of economic rationalism and the social deprivation that multiplies in these concentrations of welfare-dependants than to modernist design templates.

In Australia, the ‘block of flats’ is now an icon of contemporary urbanity. Orange- bricked, simple of design they favour outlook locations atop hills and promontories. Such thoughts of failure have been put aside as their retro and market values continue to grow.

The principles of simplicity, symmetry and order that define modernist building fit naturally with architectural photography, in the shared compositional affinity of rectangular building shapes with the camera’s rectangular frame.

39 40

55. from the series: Monolith 2004-2007 54. from the series: Monolith 2004-2007 57. from the series: Monolith 2004-2007 56. from the series: Monolith 2004-2007 41 59. from the series: Monolith 2004-2007 58. from the series: Monolith 2004-2007 42 43

61. from the series: Monolith 2004-2007 60. from the series: Monolith 2004-2007 These photographs portray a remnant vision. A vision stemming from Le Corbusier’s ideal of the “radiant city”, where formerly deprived urban citizens could live in clean, airy, sunlit environments away from the squalor of the streets.81

Modernist visions of architecture have been criticised for their aloof, detached proposals. Yet, Modernism strove for the creation of a functional, fit environment for human activities.82

Architectural post-modernism has been a revolt against the perceived sterility of Modernism rather than a clearly definable architectural style83 and has not left a clear direction for architects and society to follow. Though liberating in visual style, it has not delivered the solutions that theorists promised -

“post modernism has always had a populist tendency com- mitted to giving people what they want: a readily acces- sible symbolism designed to appeal to everyone.”84

Rather, society is left with a situation that is decidedly uncertain when it comes to our architectural environment. The modernist ideal has supposedly been dealt with and presumably laid to rest, yet the built environment hosts its littered relics while continuing to assimilate fresh examples in urban business districts.

The marks of post- or super-modernism have attained landmark status in the cases of public buildings, such as Guggenheim Bilbao, Melbourne’s Federation Square, London City Council, etc., but, perhaps in long overdue recognition of an unsuitability for domestic and commercial purposes – representing the vast majority of building - its applications continue to mark the land.

As with Modernist architects reputed aim to mark the land with their designed vision the aim of the Monolith photographs is to make an equally bold statement. One that reflects the Modern ethos and thus highlighting the intent of the architecture but also allows the photograph itself to be equally bold and arresting.

(Refer also Appendix 2)

SUMMARY

The purpose of this piece of writing is not to offer any thorough exposition or analysis of the architecture and architectural elements that are the subjects of the accompanying photographs. Land Mark Architecture – In an age of non-discovery documents the observations I have made in the production of these photographs

44 of urban landscapes. As an adjunct to this set of photographs, the writing makes clear the pertinent idea that the photographs themselves constitute the context of discovery, rather than my proceeding from preconceived themes.

These photographs of the man-made world, are the manifest of layers of complexity - and confusion - of underlying motivation, ideology, theory and practice. They are images of ‘a present’ in which appearance and disappearance are observable as extant, remnant and transitional form.

In the age of non-discovery, as discussed, a global homogeneity has over-filled the gap created by uncertainty in the face of perceived threats to civilization. Cultural vernaculars are disappearing in the relentless progress of “rationalistion”, motivated by economic theory and revealed in architectural aesthetic.

The visually arresting architecture of Modernism is the manifest of its domination of much of 20th century theory. As Modernist forms have met their counterpoint in the flimsiness of the post-modernist aesthetic (notable in residential design), we have come to an impasse.

It is through acknowledging the visible environment as the product of unseen and unknown processes, that Land Mark Architecture - in an age of non-discovery is defined. These photographs present the urban landscape of landmarks and marks on the land as documents in the manner described in Cruel and Tender. The Real in the Twentieth Century Photograph. And as with many of the practitioners from that exhibition my choice of subjects has been guided by an aversion to the obvious or physically attractive. Whereas landmarks are symbols of certainty, land marks have an enduring and changing reality that raises questions about the present and past.

Like the Bechers, I did not have a fixed idea of where my photographic explorations would take me, or what I would find. Discovery is the result of looking at the built environment without pre-judging on aesthetic grounds.

Far from my earliest vision of discovering images at grand and exotic locales, I have learned to explore my locality and discover its nature and character; how it functions as a backdrop for the human inhabitants and how they adapt to the idiosyncracies of landscape.

And the urban landscape is marked by multiple layers of contradiction. In a context so lacking in coherence, aesthetic criteria are not useful in forming conclusions. The accompanying photographs attest to the capacity of the man-made landscape to absorb and assimilate, and still maintain local distinction, seemingly against all odds.

45 ENDNOTES

1. Venturi, Robert. “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture”, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 1966, p. 19 2. Collins Australian Dictionary, Seventh Edition, Harper Collins, Sydney 2005, p.914 3. Concise Oxford Dictionary, Ninth Edition, Oxford University Press 1995, p. 764 4. Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” essay in “Illuminations”, Harcourt, Brace & World, New York 1968 5. Newton, A.P. “The Transition from the Medieval to the Modern Age” essay in Newton, A.P. (Editor), “The Great Age of Discovery”, Lennox Hill, New York 1970, pp.3-4 6. Macquarie National Dictionary, Revised Third Edition, The Macquarie Libary 1997, p. 800 7. Hans Ibelings is a Dutch architecture critic, writer and exhibition maker. Master of history of art and archaeology at the University of Amsterdam in 1988. Critic of architecture since 1986. 1989-2000, collaborator in the Nederlands Architectuurinstituut of Rotterdam. 1992-1995, professor at the Academy of the Architecture of Amsterdam. 1994-2000, editor of the Annuaire Architectuur in Nederland. 2000-2001, Professor at the Polytechnic school of Eindhoven. 2003- 2004, member of the scientific committee of the “Ciudades, esquinas” exhibition in Barcelona (2004). Since 2004, Publisher/editor of the magazine A10 new European architecture, founded by Arjan Groot and Hans Ibelings, and president of the advice of the foundation of the Museum of Paviljoens in Almere. 8. Ibelings, Hans. “Supermodernism. Architecture in the age of globalization” NAi Publishers, Rotterdam 2002, p. 64 9. Ibid., pp. 66-67 10. Ibid., p. 67 11. Ibid., p. 67 12. Augé, Marc. “Non-places. Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity” Verso, Lon- don 1995, p. 28 13. Ibid., p. 29 14. Ibid., p. 31 15. Ibid., pp. 34-35 16. Ibid., pp. 37-38 17. Ibelings, op. cit., p. 10 18. Polidori, Robert. “Metropolis”, Bellerophon Publications, Steidl, Gottingen 2004, p. 7 19. Dexter, Emma. “Photograpy Itself” essay in Dexter, Emma (Editor) “Cruel & Tender. The Real in the 20th Century Photograph” Tate Publishing, London 2003, p. 15 20. Ibid 21. Ibid 22. Erdmann Ziegler, Ulf. Art in America, June, 2002, Brant Publications, Inc. & 2002 Gale Group. Sited on Find Articles, 2005 and ongoing: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_ m1248/is_6_90/ai_87022990 23. Collins, Michael. “The Long Look”. Tate Magazine Issue 1, Sept/Oct 2002, p. 79. 24. Ibid., p. 77.

46 25. Becher, Bernd and Hilla. Conversation with Jean-François Chevrier, James Lingwood and Thomas Struth (1989) in Jean-François Chevrier, James Lingwood (Editors.), “Another Objectiv- ity Un’altra obiettivitå”. Milan Idea Books, 1989, pp. 57-62; revised traslation, 2003 cited in “Art and Photography” (Editor: Campany, David), Phaidon Press, London 2003, p. 231. 26. Buchloh, Benjamin H.D. “Thomas Struth – Photographs”, The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, 1990, p. 6 27. Ibid., p. 5 28. Ibid., p. 9 29. Wylie, Charles, “A History of Now: The Art of Thomas Struth” essay in Struth, Thomas, “Thomas Struth 1977 2002”, Dallas Museum of Art, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2002 30. Keller, Judith. “Walker Evans” The Getty Museum Collection. Thames & Hudson, London 1995 31. Dexter, op. cit., p. 15 32. Weski, Thomas, “Cruel and Tender” essay in Dexter, Emma (editor) “Cruel & Tender. The Real in the 20th Century Photograph” Tate Publishing, London 2003, p. 23 33. Ibid 34. Ibid, p. 24 35. Rian, Jeff, “Lewis Baltz” Phaidon Press, London 2001, p. 6 36. Ibid, p. 10 37. Dexter, op. cit., p. 18 38. Rian, op. cit. p. 10 39. Szarkowski, John. Introduction to “The Photographer’s Eye”, cited in Wells, Liz (Editor) “The Photography Reader”, Routledge, London 2003, p. 101 40. Wilson, Andrew. “Paul Graham / Andew Wilson, Gillian Wearing, Carol Squiers” Phaidon Press, London 1996, p. 16 41. Goldberger, Paul. “Jan Staller: Frontier New York”, Hudson Hills Press, New York 1988, Introduction 42. Meyerowitz, Joel quotation from: Diamonstein, Barbarlee. “Visions and Images: American Photographers on Photography”, Rizzoli, New York 1982, p. 112 43. Wall, Jeff. “Frames of Reference”, ArtForum, September 2003. Sited on and ongoing: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_1_42/ai_108691801/pg_1 44. Erdmann Ziegler, op. cit. 45. Ibid. 46. Dexter, op. cit., p. 18 47. Fieldus, Marc (organisor). “Typologies: nine contemporary photographers”, Newport Harbor Art Museum 1991, p. 24 48. Kunstler, James Howard. “The City in Mind”, The Free Press, New York 2001, p. 118 49. Kunstler, James Howard. “The geography of nowhere : the rise and decline of America’s man-made landscape”, Simon & Schuster, New York 1993, book jacket summary 50. Debord, Guy. “Society of the Spectacle”, Black & Red, Detroit 1983, Point 14 51. Burgin, Victor. “Looking at Photographs”. Cited in: Wells, Liz (Editor) “The Photography

47 Reader”, Routledge, London 2003, p. 133 52. de Graaf, Jan. “Empty Sites” from Giersterg, Frits & Vroege, Bas (Editors), “Wasteland. Landscape From Now On” , Fotografie Biennale Rotterdam, Uitgeverij 010 Publishers, 1992, p. 17 53. Mission Photographique de la DATAR, was a French government-sponsored agency documenting the French landscape from 1986-1990 which commissioned many and various photographers including Lewis Baltz, Josef Koudelka and Gabriele Basilico. 54. de Graaf, op. cit., p. 5 55. de Graaf, op. cit., p 8 56. Venturi, Robert. “Complexity & Contradiction in Architecture”, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 1977, p. 13 57. Champany, David (Editor). “Objective Objects” in “Art and Photography” Phaidon Press, London 2003, p. 66 58. de Botton, Alain, “The Architecture of Happiness”, Hamish Hamilton Ltd., London 2006, p. 107 59. Sydney Morning Herald. Sited on and ongoing: http://search.smh.com.au/search. ac?q=mcmansions&ss=smh) 60. Boyd, Robyn. “The Australian Ugliness”, Penguin, Ringwood 1963, p. 98 61. de Botton, op. cit., p. 72 62. Sydney Morning Herald, Monday, May 24, 2004, p. 1-2 63. de Botton, op. cit., p. 34. de Botton contextualises this statement by describing how local English vernacular architecture was historically limited by local materials and technologies and could be aesthetically differentiated from one another accordingly. 64. Ibid., p. 152 65. Ibelings, op. cit., p. 67 66. Glancey, Jonathan. “Journey into an urban heart of darkness” The Guardian Newspaper”, Tuesday, August 13, 2002 67. Murcutt, Glen. “Appropriateness in the modern Australian dwelling”, cited in Freeman, Pe- ter & Volker, Judy (Editors) “The Australian Dwelling” , RAIA, Canberra 1991, p. 50 68. Fiskin, Judy, “Judy Fiskin Interviewed by John Divola”, Bartman, William (Editor), A.R.T. Press, Beverly Hills 1988, p. 22 69. Tonkinwise elaborated this point in his lecture: “Dematerialism and the Art of Seeing Living or Why Architecture’s Self-Images lead to McMansions” lecture at University of Sydney Faculty of Architecture, April 21, 2005 70. Garreau, Joel. “Edge City: Life on the New Frontier”, Double Day, New York 1991, p. 4, sited on and ongoing: http://geography.about.com/od/urbaneconomicgeography/a/edgecity. htm 71. Silverstone, Roger (Editor & Contributor). “Visions of Suburbia”, Routledge, London 1997, p. 12 72. Kunstler, James Howard. “The City in Mind: Meditations on the Urban Condition”, Free Press, New York 2001, preface 73. Ibid.

48 74. Jencks, Charles. “Le Corbusier and the Tragic View of Architecture”, Penguin Books, Lon- don 1973, p. 139-140 75. Ibid., p. 145 76. Jencks, Charles, “Modern Movements in Architecture”, Penguin Group, London, 1985, p. 188-189 77. Greenhalgh, Paul. “Modernism in Design, Reakton Books, London 1990, p. 11 78. Ibid., p. 22 79. Banham, Reyner. “Age of Masters. A Personal View of Modern Architecture”, The Architectural Press Ltd., London 1975, p. 14 80. Ibelings, op. cit., p. 45 81. Le Corbusier. “A Contemporary City from The City of Tomorrow and its Planning” (1929). Cited in LeGates, Richard T. & Stout, Frederic (Editors), “The City Reader” (3rd Edition), Routledge, London 1996, p. 324 82. Banham, op. cit., p. 14 83. Howarth, Eva. “Architecture”, Eric Dobby Publishing Ltd., Kent 1994, p. 139 84. Ibelings. op. cit., p. 19

49 LIST OF PLATES

1. Image No: SP04-016 from the series: Monolith 2004-2007 2. Image No: SP04-031 from the series: Transition 2004-2007 3. Image No: SP06-006 from the series: Kellyville 2004 4. © Bernd & Hilla Becher, Framework House 1989 5. © Bernd & Hilla Becher, Water Towers 1988 6. © Bernd & Hilla Becher, Gas Tank 1992 7. © Thomas Struth, Hamburg 1986 8. © Walker Evans, Atlanta 1936 9. © Richard Misrach, Unamed Playa 1994 10. © Robert Adams, Colorado Sprints 1968 11. © Stephen Shore, Amarillo 1974 12. © Nicholas Nixon, The Brown Sister 1975 13. © Lewis Baltz, New Industrial Parks, Near Irvine 1974 Element 51 14. © Jan Staller, West Side Manhattan 1988 15. © Joseph Koudelka, Cardiff Bay 1998 16. © Hiroshi Sugimoto, Stadium Drive-in Orange 1993 17. © Paul Graham, Troubled Land, 1984-86. 18. Image No: A595-017 from the series: Manhole Covers 1992-94 19. Image No: A595-009 from the series: Manhole Covers 1992-94 20. Image No: A595-001 from the series: Manhole Covers 1992-94 21. Image No: A550-214 from the series: Urban Panorama 1988-90 22. Image No: A765-056 from the series: Urban Panorama 1988-90 23. Image No: A730-133 from the series: Urban Panorama 1988-90 24. Image No: SP04-057 from the series: Billboards 2001 25. Image No: SP01-085 from the series: Holborn 1999 26. Image No: 096-03 from the series: Tate Transformation 1994-2000 27. Image No: SP02-001 from the series: Berlin 1995 28. Image No: SP02-005 from the series: Berlin 1995 29. Image No: SP02-010 from the series: Berlin 1995 30. Image No: SP03-018 from the series: Transition 2004-2007 31. Image No: SP03-014 from the series: Transition 2004-2007 32. Image No: SP04-043 from the series: Transition 2004-2007 33. Image No: SP04-027 from the series: Transition 2004-2007 34. Image No: SP03-007 from the series: Transition 2004-2007 35. Image No: SP03-003 from the series: Transition 2004-2007 36. Image No: SP03-031 Beaconsfield Lanes from the series: Transition 2004-2007 37. Image No: SP03-030 Beaconsfield Lanes from the series: Transition 2004-2007 38. Image No: SP03-032 Beaconsfield Lanes from the series: Transition 2004-2007

50 39. Image No: SP03-039 Beaconsfield Lanes from the series: Transition 2004-2007 40. Image No: SP03-043 Beaconsfield Lanes from the series: Transition 2004-2007 41. Image No: SP06-003 Kellyville, from the series: Frontier 2004-2007 42. Image No: SP06-010 Kellyville, from the series: Frontier 2004-2007 43. Image No: SP06-001 Kellyville, from the series: Frontier 2004-2007 44. Image No: SP06-002 Kellyville, from the series: Frontier 2004-2007 45. Image No: SP10-008 New Suburbs, from the series: Frontier 2004-2007 46. Image No: SP10-002 New Suburbs, from the series: Frontier 2004-2007 47. Image No: SP10-019 New Suburbs, from the series: Frontier 2004-2007 48. Image No: SP10-009 New Suburbs, from the series: Frontier 2004-2007 49. Image No: SP10-014 New Suburbs, from the series: Frontier 2004-2007 50. Image No: SP10-017 New Suburbs, from the series: Frontier 2004-2007 51. Image No: SP10-020 New Suburbs, from the series: Frontier 2004-2007 52. Image No: SP10-011 New Suburbs, from the series: Frontier 2004-2007 53. Image No: SP04-008 from the series: Monolith 2004-2007 54. Image No: SP04-002 from the series: Monolith 2004-2007 55. Image No: SP05-003 from the series: Monolith 2004-2007 56. Image No: SP05-002 from the series: Monolith 2004-2007 57. Image No: SP11-009 from the series: Monolith 2004-2007 58. Image No: SP11-008 from the series: Monolith 2004-2007 59. Image No: SP11-004 from the series: Monolith 2004-2007

51 APPENDIX 1

Images of public exhibition presenting MFA documentation work: Suburban Frontier*, Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney, September 17 - October 8, 2005 * Entitled Frontier within the MFA documentation

52 APPENDIX 1

Images of public exhibition presenting MFA documentation work: Suburban Frontier*, Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney, September 17 - October 8, 2005 * Entitled Frontier within the MFA documentation APPENDIX 2

Images of public exhibition presenting MFA documentation work: an ImModern Verncacular*, Peloton, Sydney, May 16 - June 9, 2007 * Entitled Monolith within the MFA documentation BIBLIOGRAPHY

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