Architecture Sans Blueprints and Statics

One could rightfully dub the young Belgian photographer Filip Dujardin an architect of photography. Namely, architecture is his sole photography interest, and he is particularly fascinated by the sculptural form of buildings. Of course, the way he envisions buildings should look, thus he uses photoshop to create extraordinary buildings – installations that provoke considerable feel-bad sensations.

Dujardin started with shooting anonymous residential blocks both all over Belgium and his hometown Ghent. The final architecture-based shots were a source of frustration to the artist as they lacked an expressive component. Shortly thereafter Dujardin decided to become a protagonist of his own stagings, using collage art techniques modified in photoshop. The artist digitally creates architecture with strong sculptural manifestations created from fragments of photographed buildings; the end result being buildings that border between reality and science fiction.

It is possible to see a typical postmodern characteristic of architecture in his works, such as assembly of architectural elements, but also the lack of its functionality at the expense of form. Likewise, Dujardin attempts to criticize modern architecture at a conceptual level. As modern architecture is mostly built from standardized elements, Dujardin ventures to point out the feel-bad and dehumanizing sensation within them. In any case, quite an impressive strategy for creating exceptionally expressive buildings that, we sincerely hope, will never become a reality.

Click here for more on the photographer.