This is a book about the beauty of nature—its force, silence, and eternal existence—and about cities seen from above as they keep growing, threatening to suffocate us. Swiss photographer Balthasar Burkhard presents work from the last ten years, images from all over the world—from Japan to the United States, from South America to Africa and the European Alps.The photographs are arranged in chapters, eachfo-cussing on one aspect of the world: The Desert, River, Skies, Cities, Landscapes. Together, they add up to a poetic atlas, a vision of the beauties and horrors of the world today. Intense black and white images that can only be created with a photo camera. This is the first comprehensive monograph on this Swiss master of the sublime. A visual vocabulary of the world we live in, meditative and haunting, instilling peace and anxiety at the same time. A masterpiece of landscape and cityscape photography!Enigmatic man, how did you recognize these natural and extravagant images with your gaze oscillating between a body you are discovering and another you aspire to?—Laurent Busine

The fields of photography and architecture have long been closely linked: photography provides a powerful way for architecture to be appreciated from a distance, and the camera lens alters and enhances buildings so that they can be appreciated anew, even by those already intimately familiar with them. Concrete: Photography and Architecture explores this deep and often complex relationship, with particular attention paid not only to how photography influences the perception of architecture but also the very design itself. Beginning with the invention of photography in the nineteenth century, this volume presents iconic images of urban architecture and townscapes that are organized thematically rather than simply chronologically. The editors have assembled over two hundred images from numerous notable photographers, including: Georg Aerni, Adolphe Braun, Balthasar Burkhard, Lynn Cohen, Walker Evans, Lucien Hervé, Germaine Krull, Stanley Kubrick, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and William Henry Fox Talbot. Originally published to coincide with an exhibition celebrating the Fotomuseum Winterthur’s twentieth anniversary, Concrete: Photography and Architecture is an exhaustive investigation of architectural photography and is as beautiful as it is informative.  

Architecture has always been a central subject matter for photographers. For most of the 20th century, however, the practice of architectural photography has been a professional endeavor; anonymous photographs taken for clients for specific, commercial reasons. This book concerns itself with another, rarer, topic: the photography of architecture as an art practice. It considers the work of seven contemporary photographers who use buildings in their work in a new way. In these photographs, they respond to the work of prominent architects by creating their own interpretations. Here are Andreas Gursky’s photos of the Stockhom Library by Gunnar Asplund, Tomas Ruff’s photos of several works by Herzog & de Meuron, Hiroshi Sugimoto’s photos of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, as well as works by Candida Hofer, Jeff Wall, Gunther Forg, and Balthasar Burkhard. A beautiful and valuable book on one of the prominent movements in contemporary photography. Featuring: Andreas Gursky, Candida Hofer, Thomas Ruff, Jeff Wall, Gunther Forg, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Balthasar Burkhard Edited by Gloria Moure. Essays by Abalos & Enguita, Joerg Bader, Catherine Hurzeler, Hans Irrek, Gloria Moure, Barry Schwabsky, Jeff Wall and Martin Tschanz. Introduction by Terence Riley.

Spectacular City presents the work of about 30 leading artists, Dutch and international, who have chosen the urban landscape as their sphere of activity, such as Olivo Barbieri, Oliver Boberg, Balthasar Burkhard, Vincenzo Castella, Edgar Cleijne, Stéphane Couturier, Thomas Demand, Andreas Gefeller, Geert Goiris, Andreas Gursky, Naoya Hatakeyama, Todd Hido, Dan Holdsworth, Francesco Jodice, Aglaia Konrad, Luisa Lambri, Ine Lamers, Sze Tsung Leong, Armin Linke, Taiji Matsue, Karin Apollonia Müller, Bas Princen, Thomas Ruff, Frank van der Salm, Heidi Specker, Jules Spinatsch, Thomas Struth, Michael Wesely, Edwin Zwakman. Aspects of this contemporary urban photography are explored by expert international authors in various essays. The work of these photographers reveals a well-nigh extraterrestrial beauty of urban liminal spaces and sites in transformation. Over recent years they have therefore provided inspiration for a whole new way of looking at the city. Thanks to their gaze, places that were once considered ‘ugly’, such as port and industrial zones, have acquired a new visual quality, which now sometimes even serves as inspiration for the design of public spaces and buildings. The diversity of the works reveals the complexity and versatility of the urban environment, which can perhaps be better described in images rather than in words. The significance of this publication, intended for everyone who is personally or professionally concerned with the contemporary city, lies in the photographer’s provocative, self-willed view of our surroundings.