Art and architecture thrive on influence, an asset that knows no boundaries, geographic or disciplinary. It is in this spirit that we welcome new voices, perspectives and interpretations.
 National Building Museum and Metropolis Magazine contributor, Andrew Caruso, begins the 2013 run of Inside the Design Mind with an emerging voice: Yang Yongliang.  At only 32, this Chinese born graphic designer-turned digital artist has come of age in one of the most pivotal (and controversial) times in his country’s history. His digital-collage reinterpretations of China’s cities present explorations of the built environment that are simultaneously critical and aspirational, dark and foreboding yet filled with light. Already showing in galleries from Shanghai to Paris, we think he’s one to watch.



Andrew Caruso: What parts of your childhood influenced the way you approach art?


Yang Yongliang: I grew up and learned about art in an old town that had retained its traditional Chinese character. My teacher made oil paintings and he taught me basic exercises in drawing and watercolor. I remember him telling me on his deathbed that he was thinking about painting. His manner and attitude toward art had a far-reaching influence on me and his death had a profound impact. 



AC: You originally studied very traditional forms of art making. Why then did you begin your career with digital media?

YY: My childhood education included traditional paintings and calligraphy and at university I learned graphic design. I began using different software programs and studied photography and shooting techniques. Combining these skills became natural. 



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Parking structure, Roosevelt Island, New York

Do you ever wonder how another person does what you love doing? As a photographer, trained in architecture, I do. So when I get a chance to talk to a person who’s as turned on by cities, structures, and details, I grab the first chance I get a conversation going.  Meeting fellow photographer Heike Buelau, known for expressing herself through capturing the poetic aspect of our constructed environment, was like meeting a kindred spirit. As I was to find out, we share some aesthetic sensibilities, but how she arrives at her vision is completely her own.

Jean Nouvel, Chelsea condo tower, New York

With training in classical operatic singing, the German born Heike brings a sound/musical sensibility to her photography, framing every shot she takes, brining to the appreciation of the city and buildings a special flair. Used to the language of rhythmic tempo, the pauses, the piano forte, the crescendos, Buelau visually re-interprets the city as if composing a piece for chamber music: gentle, subtle, every note essential, regardless of how simple.

In a temporary hiatus from the U.S., with her a new show opening in Torino, Italy—as she was preparing the imagery she created while exploring new horizons, sights, cityscapes in the Far East, from Dubai to Abu Dabi and Kuwait—I caught up with Heike and asked her to elaborate on her views on architecture, art, and the Dubai urbanscape.

Smith Gill Architects, Burj Khalifa Tower, Dubai

Paul Clemence: What catches your eyes as you navigate the city?

Heike Buelau: Detail, small, hidden, largely undetected detail.

PC: You talk about silence a lot, how you value it….Amidst the urban chaos, how do you find it?

HB: This question ties beautifully into the first. To me a moment of silence is a moment in which I get to experience a pause from the constant influx of imagery and information in daily life, which generally sets off a never ending and unwanted noise in my mind. I have come to find that pause, that silence more and more in the detail of things and structures. The more I close in on the finest feature of a particular building, for example, the more I get drawn into its absolute beauty. Subsequently this results in that magical moment of silence. A moment of having discovered something in which all else gets shut out. All that exists to me at that point is the creative genius of the architect and my very own response to it.

Asymptote ,  project, Yas Hotel Abu Dhabi

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I picked up the phone one morning and heard a man say in Hungarian, “Korab Boldizsar vagyok,” I’m Balthazar Korab. He needn’t have followed up by adding, “I’m a photographer.” I had known that for some time. As a young design magazine editor I was drawn to his crisp, moody, beautifully framed black and white images of the built environment, including the best of modernism. But I did not know, until that morning, that we shared a homeland and were both shaped by the cold war.

His story, like mine, began in Hungary. He came to the US in 1955. I arrived here in 1956. We were both refugees from post-WWII Eastern Europe. He left Hungary in 1949 when the Iron Curtain closed around the Soviet Union’s newly claimed satellites. Eight years later my parents whisked my sister and me out of Hungary, when Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest and crushed the revolution.

After I heard Korab’s voice and I learned of our shared beginnings, I redoubled my interest in his work. His color photos taught me to appreciate the modernist innovators who built a small mid-western town, long before I visited there (Columbus, Indiana: An American Landmark, 1989). Then I found out that his intense images of Eero Saarinen’s work also revealed the story of the architect’s design process. In 1955 when he arrived in Michigan, Korab was hired by Saarinen to document the design development on buildings that were destined to gain iconic status. It’s not hard to make the connection between the initial fame and historic legacy of buildings like Dulles Airport in Virginia and the photographer’s eye.

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When the lights went out in lower Manhattan on that evening in late October, darkness enveloped everything around me. A week later I was grateful to see what two New York photographers and filmmakers saw that night. Their work helped me understand the magnitude of the blackout Superstorm Sandy visited on my beloved city, of which I could see only a small sliver from my windows. Here Ruggero and Valentina Vanni write about what it was like to be out on the streets as they documented this frightening and beautiful short film, which turns out to be a cautionary tale of modern life.—SSS

“Downtown New York, October 29, 10:13 pm.—The lights had gone out. The brunt of the hurricane just passed us. The wind fell and the rain stopped. We had to go out and see.

“We have been living here for over 30 years and photographed all over the city. We are in love with downtown Manhattan and its ever-changing urban environment at day and night. We knew this time it will be different. We could not imagine how different.

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One video on the Inside Out website explains how to make a homemade glue from flour, sugar and water.  Another shows the best way to plaster paper portraits onto outside walls. The website suggests finding approved locations for the exhibits, but doesn’t seem to insist on it; the mission of Inside Out, which prints and ships oversized, black and white photographic portraits, is rooted in activist public art, and its m.o. is akin to writing graffiti, only tamer.

Mama Suela

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Photo by Roger Edwards

Photo by Matthew Pillsbury

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Nineteen Rooms for September 11, by Jill Magi; part of InSite: Art+Communication

In our September issue, we closely consider the task of memorializing both Ground Zero, and the events of September 11, 2001. Philip Nobel wonders if the official memorial at ground zero sufficiently addresses the memory of the event, while a photo essay documents the DIY and ad hoc monuments around the city—raw expressions of New York’s grief.  But for the tenth anniversary of the attacks, institutions and individuals are finding their own ways to explore and come to terms with the memory of the traumatic event:

Ten Years After 9/11: Remembrance and Reconciliation Through Poetry, by Poets House; part of InSite: Art+Communication

InSite: Art+Commemoration
Through October 11, New York
The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council invited artistic and community response to a decade of recovery and change in Lower Manhattan. You can find their listing of performances, poetry, and ideas on their web site, which also acts as a repository of some of the artistic works. Read more…

Norman McGrath at the exhibition of his work. Photo: Magda Biernat.

On June 2, “An Eye on Architecture,” a show of Norman McGrath’s photographs opens at the New York’s Center for Architecture where it will run until June 25th. Responsible for taking some of the most memorable images of the built environment, the veteran photographer is often mentioned in the same breath as Ezra Stoller and Julius Shulman. Fellow photographers like to talk about how he “gets the essence of a building,” his proficiency in “capturing the texture of a structure,” as well as his knack for “making very small interiors spatially interesting.” Norman is known for mentoring young photographers, for his selfless sharing of information and techniques. As Stan Ries says of his oldest friend and mentor, “I am honored to be able to help curate his work so that it becomes well known to a younger generation of photographers and architects.” On the occasion of the opening and to mark Norman’s 80th birthday, I put some questions to him about his work in observing and recording architecture, changes in technology and approach, and memorable imagery.

Susan S. Szenasy: Some of your most memorable images of architecture, for me, come from you film phase, especially the black and white prints. What is it about black and white photography that is so eternally appealing?

Norman McGrath: When I was originally drawn to the field of architectural photography it was for the most part a black and white medium. Color was something of a novelty. Large format photography in color was largely confined to the advertising arena and much of it accomplished in studios. The best quality of color film was Kodachrome but that was confined to 35 mm cameras, less well suited to the documentation of architecture. 4 in. by 5 in. view cameras were considered the ideal tool. This type of camera offered the most control over the image of this essentially static subject. Read more…

Julius Shulman knew everybody. That’s how he worked. He moved through the city not merely photographing, but orchestrating and choreographing images that helped define what it meant to be modern and in Los Angeles through the buoyant optimism of the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s. He kept it up until his death in 2009.

In the new book Julius Shulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis, authors Sam Lubell, West Coast editor for the Architect’s Newspaper, and Douglas Woods have assembled a collection of Shulman’s rarely seen works that document the burgeoning city as it became a metropolis. In fact, because of Shulman’s willingness to shoot anything and accept any photographic challenge, this collection constitutes a definitive sweep through the visual history of Los Angeles. Read more…

Photo: Tomas Kauneckas.

Lithuanian photographer Tomas Kauneckas has an important message to tell us all: don’t play with water. That message is the title of his photography campaign on water conservation that he and his team created in 2009. The photographs are still circulating as a cutting-edge campaign aimed at our global view of water consumption. Privatization of water, farm irrigation, and hydropower across the globe are causing alarming drops in ground water levels. More than 40 percent of the world’s population relies on rivers to supply water. More than 260 of those river basins are shared by more than one country. Ambiguous ownership of water rights is causing tensions that could lead to wars over water. Kauneckas illustrates this problem through his photography. He wants us to know we must prepare for this growing problem. His message is important, and we are inspired by his raw, graphic photography. We’ll let Kauneckas and his photos do the rest of the talking. Read more…