I've always had a fascination for industrial landscape,and these guys are really on point.
Blast furnaces, cooling towers, gasometers, water towers,
lime kilns, compressors, factory halls, head-frames
of mine shafts - not the stuff of excitement for most of us.
however these anonymous industrial structures have
been a fountain of passion for the german spouses becher
who have avidly photographed them for over 40 years.
Their black-and-white images are all taken in the same
clinical manner: a front and profile angle provide a clear
and objective documentation of each structure,
the building is placed in the centre of the frame
and isolated from its environment. the mass of photos are
made coherent through categorisation into typologies,
revealing the vast diversity of objects all with the same
purpose. non-identical, yet uniform -
the idiosyncratic differences and similarities become
fascinating.
The Becher’s describe their subjects as
'buildings where anonymity is accepted to be the style.'
presented collectively, their images transform these buildings
into objects worthy of interest, if not admiration.
the typological approach to photography has historic
as well as aesthetic significance. we turn to photography
because it is a rich means through which to represent -
and interpret, reality - and the documentary aspect to the
Bechers work has been widely appreciated by engineering
and architectural historians.
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