Nil Aynali of Emre Arolat Architects on Architecture and Photography

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Many architects worldwide share the passion of photography for various reasons. What is your relationship with photography? Do architecture photographers do better this kind of work?

Photography is a manipulative agent for architecture, architecture can easily turn on an image which can go into the circulation of images and I think that is a problem; for example after a while the buildings are designed to be photographed and that is one of the problems because architecture is something about space not only an image. Some photographers have a manipulative effect on that issue but photographs in general makes us see the building in different ways; they have a unique “eye” that human being doesn’t have so this sometimes creates a mirror or a new “eye” which is really good to comprehend it but sometimes it is really manipulative and negative .

Many architecture theorists and a lot of people think that contemporary architecture is designed in order to be well photographed. Doing this work, do you have this feeling of buildings that are not designed to serve specific needs but are rather iconic and self-promoting?

It depends; for example if you take some buildings of famous architects like Gehry or Zaha Hadid , that are the most convenient examples that people normal use, they are designed as landmarks and they are designed to be photographed. They are important buildings but their character is about that I think. In our office we don’t usually go this way; at first face we take the character of the situation and the result are not landmark building but other kinds; though it always depends on the situation.

We can say that most of architecture photos of buildings do not include any people. What are your thoughts about including people in your photos? Is it important to photograph a building in use, or by itself?

It is up to the photographer I think. The photographer redesigns the image of the building and he can either want to shoot a building with the people or just the physical experience of it. I think I prefer to show how the building “lives”; if it “lives” with people it is ok to show it. If it is not, possibly the building can look how it is and that’s the important part.

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