Category: Photography

In his project ‘Monuments’ photographer Mathieu Bernard-Reymond manipulates landscape photographs by inserting spectacular, 3D modelled sculptures. These poetical images symbolize global, financial and environmental issues.

French photographer Mathieu Bernard-Reymond has been working on the series since 2005, creating the virtually staged monochrome landscapes. Each monument is an illustration of reality, modelled following a shape of financial chart or graph. Representing various reality facts- from global oil prices to pollution in China, the monumental sculptures also examine connections between the issues and landscapes. “By turning these curves and sculptural shapes into massive constructions close to memorials or monumental sculptures, I intend to reach something beyond data. My purpose is to underline their fundamental link to landscape and thus, to human and natural history,” says Bernard-Reymond about his narrative virtual world.

Barcelona-based architects BC Estudio designed a vertical home with a wooden slat facade for a family located in the north of the city.

Featuring a wooden slatted facade, “House in Pedralbes” was conceived to reflect the vertical nature of the Catalan capital’s hilly terrain. The location on a busy ring road led the architects to prioritise the reduction of noise pollution whilst ensuring panoramic views over the city and surrounding sea. Comprising a machine room, wine cellar and gym as well as a swimming pool and terraces, the home offers a tranquil and roomy backdrop to family life, allowing its inhabitants optimal proximity to nature. “The contrast between the wood and bush-hammered concrete with large woodwork structures serves to integrate the house with the garden and its surroundings,” state the architects.

All images © Julio Cunil

Last year, we visited Objekte Unserer Tage‘s beautiful showroom apartment to discover the brand’s collection, design ideals and visions. Dedicated to thoughtful design and craftsmanship, the Berlin-based design studio is known for their simple and functional everyday objects. This time, we are captivated by the 2017 campaign ‘Urban Character’, a fine visual narrative that revels the contemporary charm of Berlin living spaces.

Appropriately named, the collection showcases the OUT furniture objects through Berlin’s three urban dwellings. Nestled within the different city’s neighborhoods, all apartments share exquisite aesthetic and bygone traces of their areas. This still life scenery, photographed by Anne Deppe, accommodated the classics (like the FISCHER shelving system) together with novelties from the studio’s production (the iconic NEUMANN side table and the SCHULZ stool). Made from solid ash wood, this is a durable and robust stool, whose dynamic silhouette allows comfortable sitting experience. The contemporary SCHULZ with its intangible but clean appearance perfectly embodies the brand’s values mentioned above.

American photographer Katty Hoover spent time in Lake Como, Florida, USA, to capture the faces and bodies of the resident nudist community.

Drawing upon her childhood memories of the tranquil natural surroundings of the lake, Hoover spent time with the community’s members, photographing them in a variety of outdoor scenes. Lush wild greenery contrasts with immaculately-kept lawns and plastic flamingos dot the lakeside. The series alludes to a local contradiction: Whilst conservative rural Florida tends to view the naked human body as taboo, Pasco County has the greatest number of nudist camps in the USA. “Fenced from public view, Como embodies the conflicting human desires for privacy and exhibitionism. The resort is an active but hidden subculture. Daily life remains prosaic, but often provocative,” explains the photographer. “These portraits consider subjects in their natural and built environments, which often reference the glamorous, Italian destination of the same name.”

Built by architect Guilhem Eustache, the beautiful minimalist ‘Fobe House’ with its whitewashed forms and columns reminds more of a sculptural complex, rather than a home. Located south of Marrakech, in Morocco, the complex is in a seamless synergy with vegetation, climate and the Atlas Mountains on the horizon.

This architectural classic, home to a film producer, is the result of a collaboration between the architect and a client. The principal concept was to perceive architecture through movements while playing with lights, shadows and volumes. Built with traditional techniques and materials, Fobe House is also a reflection of Guilhem Eustache’s love for Morocco and its rich culture. Besides preserving the wild terrain, the team planted hundreds of new trees on a 240-sqm plot. Thick walls of the complex that respond to the high temperatures and harsh climate give the house modernist and celestial feel. Even though minimalist dwelling has the modern features like a swimming pool or glass wall, it’s also silent, discreet, and genuine towards the land. “Each region and country deserves architectural answers that are adapted to specific climate, cultural and economic conditions,” explains Eustache his architectural approach.

All images © Jean Marie Monthiers

Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky creates astonishing landscapes that explore how nature is being transformed through industry.

“I set course to intersect with a contemporary view of the great ages of man.”
Travelling around the globe with his camera, Burtynsky creates a strong metaphor of the modern world’s dilemmas, in which progress and rising quality of life leave a painful trace in the environment. Consciously or unconsciously, people constantly contribute to the damage of nature, on which they are strongly dependent due to the natural sources and materials used for growing consumption. The photographer says: “I set course to intersect with a contemporary view of the great ages of man; from stone, to minerals, oil, transportation, silicon, and so on. To make these ideas visible I search for subjects that are rich in detail and scale yet open in their meaning. Recycling yards, mine tailing, quarries and refineries are all places that are outside of our normal experience, yet we partake of their output on a daily basis.”

Italian industrial designers Bloc Studios and photographers Carl and Evelina Kleiner collaborated to create “Posture” vases, which allow flowers to be placed at different angles, resulting in sculptural arrangements.

Inspired by Carl Kleiner’s 2014 photography series “postures”, the series consists of a range of vases made from marble bases and elegant wire frames, giving their owners the creative freedom to arrange flowers and leaves in a multitude of positions. “The posture series came from experiments with methods to control the positions of the flowers in order to photograph them in poses and arrangements that made them look alive,” explains Kleiner. The vases come in three different shapes and two colors: red onyx and white Carrara.

Spanish architecture studio Fran Silvestre designed a monolithic white home which appears to be floating over a steep clifftop overlooking the Mediterranean.

The one-level structure was secured on reinforced concrete slabs, minimising earthwork and allowing the building to respect the severely sloping topography. As a result, from certain angles the horizontal terrace fronting the home appears to be floating in mid-air. Finished in smooth white lime stucco, the appropriately-named “House on the Cliff” reflects the traditional building style and materials of the area. “We like the virtue of architecture which makes possible constructing a house on air, walking on water…” explain the architects, adding that the house is located in “an abrupt plot of land overlooking the sea, where what is best is to do nothing. It invites [you] to stay.”