Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Under Construction
A copy of this square and wonderful black-and-white book arrived today at the San Francisco library where I work – Architecture Under Construction with photographs by Stanley Greenberg, recently published by University of Chicago Press.
One of the back cover blurbs describes the project perfectly in just a couple of sentences: "In these truly beautiful images, Stanley Greenberg deftly realizes one of Louis Kahn's most iconic insights: that a building is at its most sublime at two moments – when it is under construction, and when it is in ruin." – Kenneth Frampton, Columbia University
The images were taken all over the world during construction of buildings by most of the celebrity architects working today, but the photo captions in the book yield very little information and so do not distract from the gorgeous geometry that Greenberg frames. Locals may recognize the final shot taken from the top of the new Federal Building south of Market in San Francisco.