2023-04-24
Across the African continent, but especially in the sub-Saharan regions, the light has a particularly stark quality, which becomes most apparent in relation to older buildings. Before electricity, architecture was required to make use of the sun as a light source within a building, while also protecting its inhabitants from the heat. This resulted in vernacular architecture tha...
Across the African continent, but especially in the sub-Saharan regions, the light has a particularly stark quality, which becomes most apparent in relation to older buildings. Before electricity, architecture was required to make use of the sun as a light source within a building, while also protecting its inhabitants from the heat. This resulted in vernacular architecture that features very few or small openings, which consequently render the inside of a building near pitch black, while the outside is illuminated by sunshine that bears down mercilessly.
On the initiative of the lighting technology company Zumtobel Group, photographer Iwan Baan (born 1975) and architect Francis Kéré (born 1965), winner of the 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize, set out to capture how the sun’s natural light cycle shapes vernacular architecture in Burkina Faso with little to no artificial light sources. They traveled to three exemplary locations: communal compounds in Gando; the main mosque of Bobo Dioulasso; and the terraced houses in Dano. Baan’s pictures are accompanied by architectural sketches by Francis Kéré, who himself grew up in this light environment and whose architecture is inspired by it. The stunning photographs are printed using a special technique, to give a sense of being immersed in the very light conditions documented here.
Iwan Baan (born February 8, 1975 in Alkmaar) is a Dutch photographer. He has challenged a long-standing tradition of depicting buildings as isolated and static by representing people in architecture and showing the building's environment, trying "to produce more of a story or a feel for a project" and "to communicate how people use the space".He has photographed buildings by m...
Iwan Baan (born February 8, 1975 in Alkmaar) is a Dutch photographer. He has challenged a long-standing tradition of depicting buildings as isolated and static by representing people in architecture and showing the building's environment, trying "to produce more of a story or a feel for a project" and "to communicate how people use the space".He has photographed buildings by many of the world's most prominent architects, including Rem Koolhaas and Toyo Ito. He is "one of the most widely published" photographers in the world. His candid "polysemic shots" have been compared to the work of Diane Arbus.
In 2010, he won the first annual Julius Shulman Photography Award, named after the most famous architectural photographer of the 20th century. At the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale he received the Golden Lion for Best Installation. In 2012, he took the image of Manhattan after Hurricane Sandy that made the cover of New York City magazine—showing light above 42nd St. and darkness below that line—illustrating vividly the storm's disparate impact. It was later turned into a limited edition print sold to benefit Sandy's victims. In April 2016, Baan received the AIA New York's Stephen A. Kliment Oculus Award.