Fragmentos: Perceção do Espaço através da Fotografia

Abstract

Since its inception, photography has developed a very close relationship with architecture, one of the few subjects to meet the conditions of immobility suitable for the long exposures necessary when the camera's technical capabilities were still in the early stages. With the technical development this dependence became almost inverse, architecture would then be the one to depend on photography to communicate, in fact they've developed a ubiquitous relationship. Photography presented itself, initially, as a visual representation detaining a great value of accuracy whose similarity with reality was little contested. However, this apparent notion progressively gave way to a more comprehensive understanding integrating other dimensions and acknowledging its subjective nature. In architecture, this shift was felt in the early 20th century through the work of photographers such as Julius Shulman or Lucien Hervé. Photography began to be recognized as an art form, and architectural photography was no exception. Photographers started to approach buildings not just as functional structures, but as works of art with their own aesthetic qualities. The technological progress introduces new possibilities of representation and dissemination allowing the exponential multiplication of the number of images corresponding to the same referent, and therefore to the fragmentation of its image. Fragments: Perception of Space through Photography analyses photography as a method and technique of representation that allows the communication and comprehension of the specific world of architecture and urban space. The dissertation dwells upon the evolution of the photographic technique highlighting some of its most relevant points for architectural expression. It also seeks to explore a certain fragmented perception through the critique and presentation of the work of photographers who adopt different photographic representation strategies, where expressive and subjective components are present in the construction of their critical or poetic visual discourses on architecture.