Architectural Photography

The artistic directors of the Chicago Architecture Biennial discuss their new Menil Drawing Institute and the role of history in contemporary architecture.

From the destruction of King George’s likeness at Bowling Green, to the paving over of Native American earthworks, to the debasement of Penn Station and the ongoing disappearing acts of ballparks and churches, it’s becoming more and more clear that American architecture is an architecture of impermanence.

“What we are looking at in these museum restorations is the society’s superego, what a society thinks of itself, and how it thinks it should be seen by itself. This is what individuals do to a room. Again this same theme. It’s the exteriorization of the soul life or of personal values.”

This recently published box set of three books represents a comprehensive view of Lewis Baltz’s photography of the late ’70s, when he was identified with the influential photography movement New Topography.

An albumen print, titled Rivaulx Abbey, Interior of the Choir, by Philip Henry Delamotte and Joseph Cundall.