In Conversation with Iwan Baan
The following conversation between Iwan Baan, Shovan Shah (MAUD ‘20) and Saeb Ali Khan (MAUD ‘20) took place on November 16, 2018.
Iwan Baan is a world-renowned Dutch photographer with no formal training in architecture. He is one of the 100 most influential people in contemporary architecture and a recipient of the AIA Stephen A. Kilment Oculus Award. He is currently teaching an option studio at the GSD along with Tatiana Bilbao.
SS:
Your images are a juxtaposition of the building you're capturing, and the context around, how do you decide the views you want to capture?
IB:
It's difficult to say. But I think it's a very intuitive way always of working, where you spend relatively a lot of time on site - walking around and just seeing what happens throughout the day, just seeing how the light affects the building how it changes throughout the day, but then also registering what people do and how the building sits in the context and do that from every angle, walking from the ground, from the helicopter in the air, all these kind of things. You try to look a little bit into it before hand, like looking at plans, looking at Google Maps, and so, you know bit about the orientation, but in the end, it's very much an intuitive way. Photography is all sort of things that kind of fall into place, almost like puzzle pieces start to story through all through this image.
SS:
In a lot of your work, you don't only show the building, but you show a lot of the space around it.
IB:
It’s also because of my background. My architecture career is relatively short. I have been photographing since I was 12 years old and always have done more documentary work. It's only the last decade that my work has been for architects.
SS:
Architects are always trying to produce renderings which are getting more and more realistic, do you believe in that form of representation and do you think that photography can become a way conceptual thinking?
IB:
I think it's a necessary thing, these renderings, because still most of the regular public audience or clients have no clue if they look at a map or so. But, of course, renderings can be also very deceptive. Just as photography can also be very subjective of a place. There’s still a lot a photographer can put in the picture or emphasize parts of a building, parts of a context, parts of a story and leaving other things out. Any kind of representation has that effect, but with renderings - all the editing and the photoshop, and making all the things look better and better, and hiding things which might be there is even more inherent.
As a photographer, I try to tell the story of a place or on a subject where I might leave things out or include things which an architect may or may not like. Sometimes, you try to show all these editions of the site and the juxtapositions of a site or how a project fits in or sometimes doesn’t completely fit in on a site, so it might not always be a flattering image or story to tell. But, I realize that I am a photographer and am trying to tell a subjective story.
SS:
When do you use architectural model in photography?
IB:
Yeah, that is a way of representation.
I don't do it a lot at the moment anymore. But I did quite a bit with Rem (Rem Koolhaas) and with Herzog de Meuron. They're very detailed projects to work on. It requires a lot of setting to work with model photography and to place it in a real context. But I think you can still use a lot of the materiality, add textures in the model and play with the way you light and photograph things in representing that model. The nice thing is then that it’s not a slick as in rendering. You can have an immediate relationship with the model, like in a presentation with the physical model, which is right there on the table and then you see the image on the screen and how it looks like if you actually walk inside this model at your own eye level. It’s another way of making these spaces for people who are not architects or don’t understand the model or the scale, or plans. And so, I help to make it immediately understandable to visualize it.
SAK:
The most important thread in your work seems to be diversity and you have uniquely positioned yourself as a global observer of design and planning practice. I have two questions: one related to architecture and the other related to urban design. Your work studying the tower of David in Caracas and the Makoko settlement in Nigeria raises some critical questions about urban design. It seems to suggest that informal settlements, commonly perceived as “symptoms of broader structural problems” are actually intelligent solutions to problems of urbanization and respond directly to the needs of the people. How do you see the role of the urban designer then?
IB:
Of course, these settlements are far from ideal. I’m fascinated with them because they serve a need which is in no way solvable through governmental means and it is incredible to see how people figure out ways to live in these places. There are huge challenges in these settlements and at the same time, there’s a lot to learn from them. The main challenges in these cases is solving the general infrastructure problem – sewage, electricity and water – these three things, and I think that would be the most interesting challenge of how you can figure out a grid like design – I feel that’s the only way these kinds of mass housing situations can be solved. These settlements are everywhere in the world, growing and not going anywhere. Governments are trying to build mass housing but that also doesn’t really work to resettle these people or give them tools to figure out their own infrastructure. There is a great example for this – I was there two weeks ago, the Aranya housing by Doshi which he built thirty-forty years ago and works really well. Of course, it would be great if something like that can be figured out on a much larger scale.
SAK:
So, you’re saying that the opportunity for urban designers is to create frameworks on which people can find their own identity?
IB:
I think so, yes. They know perfectly what they want, and their needs are always changing so to make a super rigid plan: “this is it and this is how it will always be” never really works. Instead of large scale planning moves, I think modest infrastructural interventions from government/planning organizations that let people figure out for themselves what they need works best.
SAK:
Through your work, you have documented the human experience at both ends of the spectrum – designed to the highest level of sophistication to the most informal ones. I want to know what your observations are about the way people conduct themselves in these two different experiences – one carefully curated and one completely open to change. I think it’s an interesting question because your work also points to the way people adapt and respond to their environments and it makes me wonder the degree to which architecture has a real impact on the way people do things?
IB:
I am carefully documenting – at both ends of the spectrum, from OMA and Herzog and de Meuron to the other end of the spectrum where people are subconsciously designing places for themselves which work perfectly for them and is also curated in a way – but with local material and embedded in the site I find it interesting to document the full spectrum of how people live these days, how people create environments for themselves – sometimes in a super planned way and sometimes in a super unplanned way but I think there’s a lot to learn from both sides and you see at the same time, the same challenges, choices and solutions deployed at either ends of the sides. What I’m trying to do is just tell the story of how people are living these days in the full spectrum.
SAK:
Do you think people at both ends experience similar challenges?
IB:
They all try to create a better place for themselves. They’re always trying to make it more of their own. What I find fascinating as a photographer is that you’re allowed a unique insight and an excuse to explore these settlements – and people there are as proud of their project as any architect would be like when Rem, Jacques or Pierre call me up like “look what I’ve built” and in a way you see the same things happening and that’s interesting for me to see.
SAK:
You have also documented three stages of architectural practice in India, from Le Corbusier to the critical regionalist work that followed to current practice. How do you see this progression in the last fifty years?
IB:
Not just in India but in most places, there was this incredible moment in the 50s and 60s when architects were given projects like Chandigarh and Brasilia which had the intent and possibility to solve big problems for large groups of people. It’s sad to see that nowadays there is an abundance of design practice but at the same time the projects are much smaller in impact as opposed to the larger futuristic projects of the past. In the meantime, problems for large groups of people became bigger and that I think is the challenge for designers today – to see if large scale issues like housing can be dealt with.
SAK:
Do you see yourself influencing architects to work with communities to help them with projects such as the school with Selgascano in Kenya? And how does that influence your teaching here at GSD?
IB:
It’s really nice to work closely with an architect and develop projects around the site. And it's also the way we're trying to work always with the students here in the studio, by designing through observation, designing through a narrative, through photography and documentation and so on.
The camera is such a great tool and excuse to stick your nose into any kind of situation and really see what’s happening and how people live in a certain kind of circumstance. Then, you can use your skill as an architect to improve that situation.
It's doesn’t happen very often for me. I can’t really tell how my work will influence other architects immediately. But it's really great to work with architects - with opportunities like (Selgascano) or with Tatiana Bilbao and similar collaborations.
SAK:
How do you influence young designers, especially the students you work with, to use images in their design process?
IB:
I think what I am trying to do with this studio is to give them the tools and the background to use photography. What I find fascinating, [I learned a lot from the students here, actually and maybe I learnt more from them than they learnt from me] is that there’s such a variety of backgrounds and influences from the people here and when you give them these tools - you see that they approach the project in totally different ways. I find it fascinating and I hope to sort of empower them with those means and help them know how to work with these tools better to look at places, look at spaces and take that to another level.
The representation of architecture is an important part. At the beginning of the design process, a client often has a hard time in understanding the plan, or drawing or model or context. So, as an architect, you need to make that translation to a client, to represent a project, to get them excited.
But also at the end of the process, once your project is built, that is also a problem of representation. Not everyone can travel to see it first, so photography is an important part of it as well. It is really nice to see how the students are able to pick up these photography skills and make it a part of their studio project in terms of presentation and visualizing their ideas.