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Use the slideshow to view Baan's photographs. If viewing on a computer, clicking the image will open the slideshow in a shadow box gallery.
Iwan Baan is one of the world’s most respected architectural photographers, and rightfully so. These photos, first published in Domus, document the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, designed by Steven Holl Architects with Kendall/Heaton Associates as the Architect of Record.
Baan’s images are refreshing because of their natural feel. He works quickly, usually with the available light and people who happen to be onsite. His photographs have a sense of “dirty realism,” a term that Stan Allen, when writing about SANAA in 2010, uses to describe the way in which the messy world invades the guarded space of the architectural project. Many architectural photographs now and throughout the 20th century have been staged into deadened refinement and then post-processed to varying degrees, even before the use of Photoshop. Everything is so perfect. Images like that show you the project the architect wants you to see. Baan’s photographs show you the world as it is.
Additional images by Baan of this new building in Houston are forthcoming in Cite 102. —Jack Murphy
